Solar has quietly muscled past one of the power sector's longtime heavyweights. New data from energy think tank Ember shows that solar edged ahead of nuclear in global electricity generation in 2025 and has since pulled roughly 13% ahead, after a decade-long surge that took it from negligible to an expected 10% of world power by this year, per the BBC. Analysts say forecasts badly missed the mark as panel prices crashed, helped along by "massive" Chinese manufacturing—making solar "offensively cheap," according to Ember founder Dave Jones, and often undercutting new fossil-fuel factories. In 2020, it became the least expensive form of electricity.
"Solar plus storage is now routinely cheaper than new fossil plants in sunny regions," says Oxford energy and climate policy professor Jan Rosenow. "Batteries have largely solved the daily problem of shifting midday sun into the evening." Growth is broad, from red-state America to Pakistan and across Africa, where high diesel prices and shaky grids are pushing households toward rooftop systems powered by the sun. The main bottlenecks now: grids, storage, and how fast everything from cars to industry can be electrified, not the cost or supply of panels. More from Pew Research Center, via a series of charts, on how energy production is shifting around the world.

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