Clean energy transition statistics show a system changing at different speeds: renewable capacity reached 4,448 GW worldwide at the end of 2024, while 685 million people still lacked electricity access in 2022. The measures below distinguish capacity, generation, sales, stocks, modeled estimates and forecasts.
Key Clean Energy Transition Statistics
The most broadly useful figures span deployment, power output, electrification, access and employment:
- 4,448 GW of renewable power capacity was installed worldwide at the end of 2024.
- Renewables made up 46.4% of global installed power capacity at the end of 2024.
- Renewables supplied 92.5% of global power-capacity additions during 2024.
- Solar capacity reached 1,865 GW worldwide at the end of 2024.
- Global electricity generation grew by more than 1,200 TWh during 2024.
- Renewables supplied almost three-quarters of the increase in global power generation in 2024.
- Renewables and nuclear together generated two-fifths of global electricity in 2024.
- Solar PV supplied 7% of global electricity in 2024.
- Global renewable additions were forecast to approach 935 GW per year by 2030, compared with 666 GW in 2024.
- Renewable electricity was forecast to reach 46% of global electricity generation in 2030, up from 30% in 2023.
- More than 17 million electric cars were sold worldwide in 2024.
- Electric cars represented more than 20% of new passenger-car sales worldwide in 2024.
- The global electric-car fleet reached almost 58 million passenger cars at the end of 2024.
- 685 million people lacked access to electricity worldwide in 2022.
- 2.1 billion people lacked clean cooking fuels and technologies worldwide in 2022.
- Renewable-energy employment reached 16.2 million jobs worldwide in 2023.
Contents
- Renewable capacity and investment scale
- Clean electricity generation and the power mix
- Solar and wind deployment trends
- Electrification: electric cars and batteries
- Energy access and affordability
- Transition jobs and the 2030 outlook
Renewable Capacity and Clean Energy Investment Statistics
Installed capacity measures the maximum generating capability of power assets, not the electricity they actually produce. At the end of 2024, global renewable power capacity stood at 4,448 GW, equal to 46.4% of total installed power capacity, after growing 15.1% year on year.
The Renewable Capacity Highlights 2025 report also recorded the following year-end measures:
| Measure | World, end-2024 | Definition or limitation |
|---|---|---|
| Renewable capacity | 4,448 GW | Maximum net generating capacity |
| Variable renewable share | 31.3% of installed capacity | Solar and wind; capacity, not generation |
| Solar capacity | 1,865 GW | 42% of global renewable capacity |
| Hydropower capacity | 1,283 GW | Renewable hydropower capacity |
| Wind capacity | 1,133 GW | Onshore and offshore combined |
Renewables supplied 92.5% of global power-capacity additions in 2024. Variable renewable capacity grew 23.2% year on year, while Asia added 421.5 GW, or 72.0% of global renewable additions, and held 2,382 GW, or 53.6% of the global stock, at year-end.
Investment measures financial flows rather than installed assets or energy output. The World Energy Investment 2025 executive summary forecast USD 3.3 trillion in global energy-sector investment in 2025, up 2% in real terms from 2024.
Clean-energy investment was expected to reach about USD 2.2 trillion in 2025, twice the USD 1.1 trillion forecast for oil, gas and coal supply; the clean category includes renewables, nuclear, grids, storage, low-emissions fuels, efficiency and electrification.
Clean Electricity Generation Statistics and the Changing Power Mix
Generation shows electricity actually produced, so it should not be read as a direct conversion of capacity shares. Global electricity generation increased by more than 1,200 TWh in 2024, a 4% rise compared with the 2.6% average annual rate recorded during 2010–2023.
According to Global Energy Review 2025: Electricity, renewables supplied almost three-quarters of the increase in global power generation in 2024. Solar PV generation rose by about 480 TWh, and wind generation by about 180 TWh.
| Electricity source or group | Share of global generation, 2024 | Geography |
|---|---|---|
| Renewables and nuclear | Two-fifths | World |
| Renewables | One-third | World |
| Hydropower | 14% | World |
| Wind | 8% | World |
| Solar PV | 7% | World |
| Bioenergy and waste | 3% | World |
| Nuclear | 9% | World |
| Coal | 35% | World |
Regional generation shares differed from the global mix. Renewables supplied nearly half of EU electricity, about 35% of China’s electricity, and over 20% of India’s electricity in 2024; these are regional generation shares, not installed-capacity shares.
Solar and Wind Deployment Trends in Clean Energy Transition Data
The Renewables 2024: Global overview gives a main-case forecast for accelerating deployment. Annual renewable capacity additions were expected to rise from 666 GW in 2024 to almost 935 GW in 2030, while cumulative renewable capacity was forecast to increase by more than 5,520 GW during 2024–2030.
Solar PV and wind were forecast to account for 95% of renewable additions through 2030. The projected 2024–2030 increase was 2.6 times the deployment during 2017–2023.
Solar PV was forecast to account for almost 80% of global renewable-electricity expansion through 2030. Distributed applications, including residential, commercial, industrial and off-grid projects, were expected to represent almost 40% of PV expansion.
Country-level concentration is substantial:
- China was expected to install 3,207 GW of new renewable capacity during 2024–2030.
- India’s annual renewable additions were forecast to rise from 15 GW in 2023 to 62 GW in 2030.
The same IEA main case projected renewable electricity’s share of global electricity generation to rise from 30% in 2023 to 46% in 2030. Global renewable generation was forecast to exceed 17,000 TWh in 2030, almost 90% above 2023, while variable renewables were expected to provide two-thirds of renewable generation, up from less than 45% in 2023.
Renewables’ share of final energy consumption was forecast to rise from 13% in 2023 to nearly 20% in 2030. This final-energy measure covers power, heat and transport energy, so it is not interchangeable with the electricity-generation share.
Electrification Statistics: Electric Cars and Battery Adoption
Electric-car figures cover new passenger cars unless otherwise stated, and include battery-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles. The Global EV Outlook 2025: Trends in electric car markets reported that global electric-car sales topped 17 million in 2024, more than 25% above 2023, and exceeded 20% of new passenger-car sales worldwide.
| Electric-car measure | 2024 result | Population or geography |
|---|---|---|
| New electric-car sales | More than 17 million | World |
| New-sales share | More than 20% | World passenger-car sales |
| New electric-car sales | More than 11 million | China |
| Sales outside China, Europe and the US | 1.3 million, up nearly 40% | Grouped global markets |
| Electric-car fleet | Almost 58 million | World, end-2024 |
| Fleet share | About 4% | World passenger-car fleet, end-2024 |
The end-2024 global electric-car fleet was more than three times its 2021 size. The stock displaced more than 1 million barrels of oil per day in 2024, an IEA modeled estimate rather than directly metered savings.
Stock penetration was higher in some regions: about one in ten cars in China and one in twenty cars in Europe was electric at the end of 2024. These are rounded estimates of car-stock shares, not new-sales shares.
Energy Access and Affordability Statistics in the Transition
Energy access is a participation and welfare measure, not simply a renewable-capacity indicator. The World Bank’s Global energy access gap worsens as population growth outpaces new connections reported that 685 million people lacked electricity access worldwide in 2022, 10 million more than in 2021.
About 80% of people without electricity access lived in rural areas in 2022. The access figures use the SDG7 access definition and modeled estimates; they do not measure connection quality.
Clean cooking is a separate service and population measure. In 2022, 2.1 billion people lacked access to clean cooking fuels and technologies, and household reliance on polluting fuels and technologies contributed to an estimated 3.2 million premature deaths annually.
The clean-cooking population should not be added to the electricity-access population, because the two indicators describe different services and are not the same group of people. The health figure is an annual estimate of burden, not a count of deaths directly observed in the access estimate.
Clean Energy Transition Jobs, Regional Concentration and the 2030 Outlook
Employment captures labor connected to renewable energy but is not a census of every transition-related job. The Renewable Energy and Jobs: Annual Review 2024 estimated 16.2 million renewable-energy jobs worldwide in 2023, up from 13.7 million in 2022.
Solar photovoltaic employment reached about 7.1 million jobs worldwide in 2023. These IRENA/ILO figures cover direct and indirect employment as defined by the report, and methods and coverage vary by technology.
The IEA’s main case in Renewables 2024: Global overview projected global renewable capacity in 2030 at 2.7 times its 2022 level. The outlook projected capacity nearly 25% above governments’ current stated ambitions, a comparison with stated plans rather than a guaranteed result.
The forecast covered policy support in nearly 140 countries. That count identifies countries with relevant climate and energy-security policies; it is not an adoption rate, and the projections remain IEA main-case forecasts rather than observed 2030 outcomes.