https://ourworldindata.org/renewable-energy
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/modern-renewable-energy-c...
https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/indias-electrotech-...
(global solar PV deployment is just a bit below ~1TW/year at current deployment rates)
Some panel in a solar farm in Canada is not gonna see the conditions that let it produce rated capacity nearly as often as one in Arizona. So the guy in Canada installs more capacity to get the same power. Meanwhile the guy in Arizona doesn't have enough copper leading out of his site to handle the power he could produce at peak on the best days, because he over-provisioned too, in order to be able to produce a given amount earlier/later in the day. The actual generation hardware is so cheap that this is just the sensible way to deploy renewables, but it makes for stupid misleading numbers.
Legacy power generation has much different numbers and isn't subject to the whims of the weather so installed capacity is a number that means something in that context.
https://ember-energy.org/latest-updates/24-hour-solar-now-ec...
https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/solar-electricity-e... ("104$/MWh: Achieving 97% of the way to 24/365 solar in very sunny regions is now affordable at as low as $104/MWh, cheaper than coal and nuclear and 22% less than a year earlier.")
> Legacy power generation has much different numbers and isn't subject to the whims of the weather so installed capacity is a number that means something in that context.
Legacy power is ridiculously expensive in comparison. Who will invest in fossil gas generation when ~20% of LNG exports have been taken offline for the next 3-5 years?
https://www.lazard.com/media/eijnqja3/lazards-lcoeplus-june-... (page 8)
Strikes on Qatar's LNG Ras Laffan plant Will Reshape the Future of Fossil Gas - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47484246 - March 2026
Fossil fuels are over, it's just how fast we get to "done." Enough sunlight falls on the Earth in 30-60 minutes to power humanity for a year. Solar PV and battery manufacturing continues to spool up, and year by year, more fossil generation is pushed out.
California is routinely operating at 80% renewables, 90% low carbon generation during daylight hours as they work towards installing battery storage to replace their fossil generation (~52GW target by 2045), for example, while having plans for 10s of GWs of additional solar to come online over the next decade.
https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/US-CAL-CISO/live/fi...
https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/califo...
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/solar/were-harvesting-t...
They're so cheap they get over-provisioned on purpose. Can you imagine some guy speci'ng switchgear and transmission lines for a coal or gas plant that can't handle the plant running full tilt? Yeah me either. But that's exactly how it's done for renewables because that's where the sweet spot of cost-benifit is.
A dozen 10mw turbines might be fed through 100mw of transmission hardware. They can never produce their rated 120mw because liquid copper would happen if they did. But they were intentionally provisioned that way so that based on weather patterns and whatnot they'd be able to expect say 80mw a certain number of days per year.
There are untold numbers of renewable installations out there that cannot supply their nameplate capacity to the grid in such a manner.
If gas plants cannot economically compete, they will not be built or fired. And the evidence shows they cannot compete, regardless of their competing capacity factor and dispatchability.
EDF fleet upkeep will cost over 100 billion euros by 2035, court of auditors says - https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/edf-fleet-upkeep-wil... - November 17th, 2025
French utility EDF lifts cost estimate for new reactors to 67 billion euros - Les Echos - https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/french-utility-edf-l... - March 4th, 2024
Explainer-Why a French plan to take full control of EDF is no cure-all - https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/07/07/edf-nationalistion - July 7th, 2022
Spain’s Nuclear Shutdown Set to Test Renewables Success Story - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-11/spain-s-n... | https://archive.today/4fB7K - April 11th, 2025 (“Spain is a postcard, a glimpse into the future where you’re not going to need baseload generators from 8am to 5pm” with solar and wind providing all of the grid’s needs during that time, said Kesavarthiniy Savarimuthu, a European power markets analyst with BloombergNEF. Still, she said, there is a reasonable chance this goal may take longer than expected and “extending the life of the nuclear fleet can prove as an insurance for these delays.”) (My note: As of this comment, Spain has 7.12GW of nuclear generation capacity per ree.es, and assuming ~1GW/month deployment rate seen in Germany, could replace this capacity with solar and batteries in ~28-36 months; per Electricity Maps, only 17.25% of Spain's electrical generation over the last twelve months has been sourced from this nuclear)
That's why Putin attacked in 2022, and didn't wait any longer to build a stronger military. He knew he was on the clock as Europe slowly switched to renewables his fossil fuel leverage got weaker.
Unrelated, but doomer version of me expects that China will wait for the US to exhaust it's cruise missile supply bombing Iran, then move over Taiwan. Hope I'm wrong about this.
Not as far as you’d think though. According to [0] in 2024 it was 6.9% solar, 8.1% wind, and 14.3% hydro, I.e. 29% renewables. Given the trajectory I wouldn’t be surprised if that total was ~33% in 2025.
[0]: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-prod-source-s...
toomuchtodo•54m ago