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Clean energy closed 2025 with a record 693 GW of new renewable capacity installed worldwide. Yet, as of May 9, 2026, the latest IRENA assessment makes the gap painfully clear: global renewable capacity stands at 5.15 TW, while the COP28 goal for 2030 is 11.2 TW. To hit that number, annual additions must average roughly 1.2 TW between 2026 and 2030—73% above the historic level recorded in 2025.
The IRENA assessment, prepared with the Turkish COP31 Presidency and the Global Renewables Alliance, tracks far more than installed capacity. It shows where clean energy is winning on cost, where investment is flowing, and where the transition is starting to stall.
The volume added in 2025 was the largest single-year jump ever recorded. Renewables now account for about half of all installed electricity capacity worldwide. That is a structural shift, not a temporary spike.
Still, the pace is not fast enough. Between 2026 and 2030, the world needs to add about 1.2 TW of renewable capacity each year. That is roughly a 2025-sized record every seven months, for five straight years. In effect, the next phase requires building more renewable capacity than the entire world produced before 2025.
The COP28 target was always ambitious. The new IRENA data simply confirms how much work remains.
The rapid expansion is also visible in the economics of power generation. IRENA estimates that renewables displaced nearly $500 billion in fossil fuel expenses in 2025, with the official calculation coming in at around $480 billion.
That number represents real savings from solar, wind, hydro and other renewable plants replacing coal, gas and oil generation. More importantly, more than 90% of large-scale renewable projects that came online in 2025 produced electricity at a lower cost than the cheapest new fossil plant in their markets.
Cost competitiveness is now the main driver of clean energy investment. According to UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell, global clean energy attracted over $2 trillion in the past year. For businesses and utilities, the financial argument for renewables has moved from green preference to plain arithmetic.
Solar energy is leading the expansion, and the report expects that leadership to deepen. IRENA projects that annual net solar additions will roughly double by 2030, compared with 2025 levels.
Wind and solar combined are expected to climb from 35% of global installed capacity in 2025 to about 62% by 2030. If those projections hold, variable renewables alone would exceed all installed fossil fuel capacity. That would be a turning point in how the global power system is built and operated.
The technology is proven. The challenge now is building enough transmission, storage and market flexibility around it.
Adding generation is only half of the energy transition. The other half is moving that power to where it is needed. IRENA Director-General Francesco La Camera has warned that electric grids and other system components are not advancing at the same pace as renewable capacity.
The report estimates that grids will need almost $1 trillion per year in investment between 2026 and 2030—more than double the level seen in 2025. Without those grid upgrades, new wind and solar farms may be delayed, curtailed or left waiting for connection.
This is not a distant concern. In California, midday solar generation is sometimes curtailed because the grid cannot absorb enough power. Similar pressures are appearing in other fast-growing renewable markets. Grids, not generation costs, are now the main constraint.
Storage is becoming the missing link between variable generation and reliable supply. Battery costs fell 30% between 2024 and 2025, and are down 95% since 2010. That collapse has made it viable to pair storage with renewable projects.
By 2025, roughly a quarter of major solar projects that started operating included battery storage. These hybrid plants can save cheap solar power generated at midday and release it during evening peaks. That ability reduces the need for fossil gas peaker plants and helps stabilize prices.
Storage alone cannot solve every grid problem, but it is becoming a standard feature of new clean energy projects.
The renewable supply side is making progress. The demand side is not keeping up. Global energy intensity—the amount of energy used per unit of economic activity—improved by only about 2% in 2025. That is half the 4% annual improvement needed to meet the COP28 commitment.
The challenge is getting harder because electricity demand is rising. Data centers, artificial intelligence systems, electric vehicles and industrial electrification are all adding new load. Efficiency is not an afterthought; it is a way to make every gigawatt of clean generation go further.
Simon Stiell has urged technology companies to report and reduce the energy and water use of their data centers, and to increase their use of renewable electricity. The AI buildout is adding enormous electrical demand to grids that are already stretched.
Some large tech companies are signing clean power agreements, but the pace of demand growth raises hard questions about grid capacity and transparency. If data centers expand without efficiency measures, they could consume a significant share of the new clean electricity that was meant to replace fossil fuels.
The solution is not slower AI deployment. It is better system planning, stronger efficiency standards and clearer reporting.
Geopolitical crises have pushed energy security back to the center of policy debates. Ben Backwell, president of the Global Renewables Alliance, notes that countries are increasingly focused on prices, supply stability and reducing dependence on imported fuels.
Renewables offer a way out of that trap. A system powered by domestic solar and wind is less exposed to global coal, oil and gas price swings. That makes the clean energy transition an energy security strategy, not just a climate strategy.
For consumer-facing businesses, the benefit is predictable: lower exposure to volatile international fuel markets means more stable costs.
The global grid warning has a direct echo in the United States. Solar and wind projects are already facing long interconnection delays and limited transmission capacity. The Inflation Reduction Act helped accelerate clean energy deployment, but the infrastructure around it did not grow at the same speed.
Utility planning across Texas, California and the Southeast now involves more storage procurement and grid modernization. IRENA's call for roughly $1 trillion per year globally is a reminder that the US is competing in the same race. The cheapest form of energy is not always the most useful one unless the grid can actually deliver it.
The next major checkpoint is COP31, under Turkey's presidency. One proposed goal would require electricity to make up 35% of final global energy consumption by 2035. That implies a much deeper electrification of transport, heating and industry.
It also means generation, grids, storage and efficiency must advance at the same time. A record single year, by itself, will not meet the 2030 target. The world needs an average of 1.2 TW in new capacity every year for the next five years, plus the networks and batteries to support it.
The momentum is real. The technology is affordable. The remaining bottleneck is execution—and the next few years will determine whether the clean energy transition stays on track.
