Worldwide renewable energy capacity is projected to more than double in the next five years, adding the capacity equivalent of all existing power generation sources in China, Japan and the European Union combined, a report from the International Energy Agency concludes.
The IEA thinks China will account for close to 60 percent of global growth, with accelerating development in India, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The lion’s share of the increase worldwide will be driven by solar.
“The renewables revolution is unstoppable,” said Raul Miranda, the global program director at Ember, an energy think tank focused on the clean energy transition, in a statement responding to the report. “Renewables are delivering on meeting the world’s growing demand for electricity, powering economic growth and boosting energy security.”
One outlier is the United States. The IEA’s forecast for the country was revised downward by almost 50 percent compared to last year’s report, triggered by policy changes championed by President Donald Trump and his administration. From an executive order targeting wind permitting to the hastened expiration of investment and production tax credits, Trump’s sweeping anti-renewable energy stance is part of the reason for a 5 percent decrease in global trend projections compared to 2024.
“The most striking policy changes, of course, are in the United States with the One Big Beautiful Bill,” said David Victor, professor of innovation and public policy at the University of California San Diego.
Victor said it was possible that state laws—like those in California mandating more renewables—could temper some of the impacts of Trump’s policies. States that lack those kinds of incentives, like Texas, currently the nation’s leader in renewable energy,could see a contraction in growth going forward.
But much about what will happen next in the U.S. remains extremely hard to predict, he said.
The other reason for the slight overall decrease in growth expectations vs. last year is a policy shift in China, which has resulted in some uncertainty for the country’s huge renewable sector. In May, China moved from a government-subsidy model for renewable projects toward a more market-based approach. Wind and solar in China saw huge gains in the first part of 2025 as developers raced to solidify new projects before the policy took effect.
China still controls the vast majority of the world’s supply chain for solar cells and for the rare-earth elements necessary to make wind turbines, a situation that is likely to continue.
Projections for the European Union, the Middle East and India were revised upward compared to last year. India is expected to become the second-largest growth market for renewable energy, behind only China. The forecast for the Middle East and North Africa was revised upward by 25 percent, the biggest jump, mainly because of Saudi Arabia’s “rapid” growth in solar. Utility-scale solar in Germany, Spain, Italy and Poland is driving growth in the EU.
Pakistan has seen notable increases in solar installations, especially in off-grid solar panels for homes and businesses. “In many places, the grid is dysfunctional,” Victor said. That dynamic makes small-scale solar a much more attractive option, especially as the cost of solar panels falls.
“With the recent reduction of the prices, solar PV has become, in many countries in the world, the cheapest way of meeting new electricity demand,” said Heymi Bahar, senior energy analyst at IEA and the lead author of the report. “The costs are still going down.”
Victor said he thought that the report “hasn’t really grappled with some of the headwinds for the industry.” Those include logistical and technical challenges like the cost of integrating renewable power into the grid, which he called “a looming issue.” Another obstacle is that renewables need more land than other power sources for the same level of generation, which could become a stumbling block to growth in some parts of the world and could pose environmental risks.
Is the story of the IEA’s new analysis the outsize influence the U.S. has on the ability of the world to move forward on renewables? Or is it that the world continues to push ahead, even without expected American support? Victor said the report is like a Rorschach test: Readers are likely to see what they want to see in its findings.
“If you’re inside the U.S. market, or you want to be critical of the U.S., you look at this report and you say, ‘See, the U.S. is not doing its part. Everyone else is,’” he said. “But if you look at this from the point of view of clean tech being a global market, you say, ‘Despite wrenching change in the second-largest market for renewables in the world, the overall picture globally is still growth for 2030 and beyond.’”
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Kiley Bense
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Kiley Bense covers climate change and the environment with a focus on Pennsylvania, politics, energy, and public health. She has reported on the effects of the fracking boom in Pennsylvania, the expansion of the American plastics industry, and the intersection of climate change and culture. Her previous work has appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic, Smithsonian Magazine, the Believer, and Sierra Magazine, and she holds master’s degrees in journalism and creative writing from Columbia University. She is based in Pennsylvania.
