In 2025, the global solar power market finally shifted to the East. China added 336 TWh of solar generation – more than the rest of the world combined – accounting for 53% of global growth.
But this is no longer just a Chinese story. Looking more broadly, China together with the rest of Asia contributed almost 67% of the world’s solar generation growth. In other words, two-thirds of the world’s new solar electricity now comes from the Asian region.
According to Ember, global solar generation grew by a record 636 TWh in 2025, covering 75% of the growth in global electricity demand. Together with wind, renewable energy sources (RES) effectively met almost all of the new demand, and renewables overtook coal in global power generation for the first time: 33.8% versus 33%.
China is the main producer, investor, and technological driver here. India is the second key example: the country is scaling up renewables amid rising energy consumption and its ambition to become a new industrial alternative to China. For India, this is no longer so much a climate agenda as a matter of competitiveness: without cheap electricity, it’s impossible to build mass industry, data centers, transport infrastructure, and the cities of the future.
Because solar power today is no longer about the environment. It’s about production costs, energy independence, and a country’s place on the new industrial map of the world.
