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London, 8 April – The world reached a new milestone as low-carbon sources – renewables and nuclear – provided 40.9% of the world’s electricity generation in 2024, passing the 40% mark for the first time since the 1940s, according to a report by global energy think tank Ember.
Renewables were the main driver of overall clean growth, adding a record 858 TWh in 2024, 49% more than the previous high in 2022. Solar was the largest contributor for the third year running, adding 474 TWh to reach a share of 6.9%. Solar was the fastest-growing power source (+29%) for the 20th year in a row. Solar electricity has doubled in just three years, providing more than 2,000 TWh of electricity in 2024. Wind generation also grew to 8.1% of global electricity, while hydro’s share remained steady at 14% – the single largest renewable source.
“Solar power has become the engine of the global energy transition,” said Phil MacDonald, Ember’s managing director. “Paired with battery storage, solar is set to be an unstoppable force. As the fastest-growing and largest source of new electricity, it is critical in meeting the world’s ever-increasing demand for electricity.”
Ember’s sixth annual Global Electricity Review provides the first comprehensive overview of the global power system in 2024 based on country-level data. It is published today alongside the world’s first open dataset on electricity generation in 2024, covering 88 countries that account for 93% of global electricity demand, as well as historical data for 215 countries.
The analysis finds that, despite the rise in renewables, fossil generation saw a small 1.4% increase in 2024 due to surging electricity demand, pushing global power sector emissions up 1.6% to an all-time high.
Heatwaves were the main driver of the rise in fossil generation, accounting for almost a fifth (+0.7%) of the increase in global electricity demand in 2024 (+4.0%), mainly through additional use of cooling. Without these temperature effects, fossil generation would have risen by only 0.2%, as clean electricity generation met 96% of the demand growth not caused by hotter temperatures.
“Amid the noise, it’s essential to focus on the real signal,” continued Mr MacDonald. “Hotter weather drove the fossil generation increase in 2024, but we’re very unlikely to see a similar jump in 2025.”
Aside from weather effects, increasing use of electricity for AI, data centres, electric vehicles and heat pumps is already contributing to global demand growth. Combined, growing use of these technologies accounted for a 0.7% increase in global electricity demand in 2024, double what they contributed five years ago.
The report shows that clean generation growth is set to outpace faster-rising demand in the coming years, marking the start of a permanent decline in fossil generation. The current expected growth in clean generation would be sufficient to meet a demand increase of 4.1% per year to 2030, which is above expectations for demand growth.
“The world is watching how technologies like AI and EVs will drive electricity demand,” continued Mr MacDonald. “It’s clear that booming solar and wind are comfortably set to deliver, and those expecting fossil fuel generation to keep rising will be disappointed.”
Beyond emerging technologies, the growth trajectories of the world’s largest emerging economies will play a crucial role in defining the global outlook. China and India are already shifting towards meeting their growing electricity needs with clean energy.
More than half of the increase in solar generation in 2024 was in China, with China’s clean generation growth meeting 81% of its demand increase in 2024. India’s solar capacity additions in 2024 doubled compared to 2023. These two countries are at the forefront of the drive to clean power and will help tip the balance towards a decline in fossil generation at a global level.
“Cleantech, not fossil fuels, is now the driving force of economic development,” concluded Mr MacDonald. “The era of fossil growth is coming to an end, even in a world of fast-rising demand.”
In several states, Republican lawmakers are taking the lead on an unexpected policy priority: encouraging more community solar.
This year, Republicans in Georgia, Iowa, Missouri, and Ohio have sponsored bills to spur the growth of this shared renewable energy resource in their states. Community solar installations, which are typically 1 to 5 megawatts, or up to 30 acres, allow households to reap the benefits of cheaper, clean power without putting panels on their own roofs. And customers who subscribe to these projects can save money on their electricity bills.
While the Georgia Homegrown Solar Act of 2025 will have to wait until next year to move forward now that the Peach State’s legislature is in recess, the proposed laws in Iowa (HF 404) and Ohio (HB 15 and SB 2) remain in play alongside the Missouri measure, which passed unanimously out of the House’s legislative rules committee today.
Twenty-five states have already adopted policies to enable community solar, according to an April report from the NC Clean Energy Technology Center. Nationwide, shared solar had its biggest growth spurt ever in 2024, rising 35% from 2023 to reach a cumulative 8.6 gigawatts of installed capacity, according to Wood Mackenzie. Now, the idea is gaining momentum among conservatives.
Not only are GOP lawmakers introducing and signing on to more community solar bills, but other local Republican stakeholders such as chambers of commerce, landowners, and conservative policy groups are also voicing their support, according to the national trade association Coalition for Community Solar Access. The libertarian group Americans for Prosperity is backing Iowa’s HF 404 — alongside Walmart. Last year, in Alaska, several GOP legislators voted for a community solar bill, and the state’s Republican governor signed it into law.
“We’re starting to see … this groundswell that’s happening,” said Matthew Hargarten, vice president of government and public affairs at the Coalition for Community Solar Access.
That Republicans are advocating for solar at the local level comes as something of a surprise given the federal government’s ongoing opposition to clean energy. On Capitol Hill, GOP lawmakers are weighing the repeal of federal tax credits for renewables, and the Trump administration has attempted to claw back billions of dollars Congress authorized for solar and other clean energy projects. At the same time, the executive branch claims its actions are “ensuring America’s future is marked by energy growth and abundance – not scarcity.”
So why is community solar finding fans among some local Republican lawmakers?
These projects brim with benefits, including ones that tap into the conservative principles of free markets and individual property rights, according to advocates.
Community solar policy can attract private investment from third-party developers of these projects, opening up competition in the energy-generation market, which is often dominated by monopoly utilities. All the recently introduced Republican-backed bills would create this competitive structure by allowing third-party-owned projects where they were previously barred, the Coalition for Community Solar Access pointed out.
Companies that own shared solar installations pay property taxes that help fund local schools and emergency services. And these projects provide energy close to where it’s being consumed, which can reduce the costs of building out grid infrastructure to deliver power to far-flung customers.
Plus, community solar can help farmers keep their agricultural land in production. Farmers and ranchers who need to let a few acres lie fallow to regenerate the soil can lease that plot to earn a passive, stable income for 20 or 30 years.
Some of those reasons explain why the American Legislative Exchange Council, the national conservative group known for packaging model legislation for policymakers, supports building community solar and combining it with agriculture, a practice known as agrivoltaics.
“[American Legislative Exchange Council] members have long abided by the fundamental principles of individual property rights and have worked to remove regulatory barriers that impede private landowners from utilizing the value of their property for energy projects, whether they are for solar, wind, fracking, biofuels, or other sources,” Jake Morabito, senior director of the group’s energy, environment, and agriculture task force, said in a statement to Canary Media.
Shared solar also boosts local economies. On average, 5 megawatts of community solar delivers $14 million in local economic activity and supports nearly 100 jobs, according to a nationwide review of economic impact reports released this month by the Coalition for Community Solar Access. At scale, the organization notes, that equates to $2.8 billion in local economic activity and more than 18,000 jobs (direct, indirect, and induced) per gigawatt of new installed capacity.
Plus, the energy bill savings offered by community solar have obvious appeal on both sides of the aisle. Developers often guarantee subscribers a 5% to 20% discount on the energy cost. For example, with a $100 investment, a subscriber could buy $120 worth of electricity.
Each of the state bills currently being considered is tailored to the state’s regulatory environment, but all allow customers to save on power bills.
“Ultimately, for me, it was giving Iowan consumers a choice,” said Iowa state Rep. Hans Wilz, a Republican, in a March interview on why he introduced a community solar bill. Not everyone can afford to put solar panels on their roof, he explained: “This is a way for all Iowans to be able to participate in a solar program.”
That’s a far cry from a common refrain that Lori Saine said she often heard from fellow Republicans during her tenures as a state representative and local official in Colorado: “‘You like China and Biden if you like solar panels.’”
As a commissioner in Weld County, Colorado, Saine helped update the jurisdiction’s code to allow community solar projects, and as a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council, she introduced the group’s model resolution supporting shared solar.
To be sure, even today community solar can be “a political buzz saw for some Republicans, especially if they’re in deep red districts,” which tend to be rural, Saine said. But once people “save some money on their energy bills, suddenly the tune changes really, really fast.”
As for whether the Republican-backed draft laws will pass, “it’s impossible to say,” said Hargarten, with the Coalition for Community Solar Access. Utilities consistently oppose such legislation, according to the group. Still, here’s one encouraging sign: A Montana shared-solar bill cleared both Republican-controlled chambers this month and now awaits the governor’s signature.
We’ll know soon enough the fate of some of these bills. Iowa lawmakers go home May 2, and Missouri legislators follow soon after on May 16. Ohio keeps legislating until Dec. 31.
The rising support for community solar among Republicans is “a kind of awakening,” Saine of Colorado said.
“It’s not a partisan issue if you’re generating an electron, and you’re doing it safer, more effectively, and cheaper, and then delivering that product to consumers who really, really need it — which is, by the way, everyone,” she noted. “That’s a win-win.”
An update was made on April 29, 2025: This story has been updated to reflect that Missouri’s community solar bill passed out of the House’s legislative rules committee on April 29.
A clarification was made on April 30, 2025: An earlier version of this story said that Georgia’s legislative session had ended and that the Georgia Homegrown Solar Act of 2025 is off the table. The story has been updated to clarify that the legislative session is in recess until next year, meaning the Georgia Homegrown Solar Act of 2025 will have to wait until then to move forward.
Raymond Ward wants to see solar panels draped over every balcony in the United States and doesn’t understand why that isn’t happening.
The technology couldn’t be easier to use — simply hang one or two panels over a railing and plug them into an outlet. The devices provide up to 800 watts, enough to charge a laptop or power a small fridge. They’re popular in Germany, where everyone from renters to climate activists to gadget enthusiasts hail them as a cheap and easy way to generate electricity. Germans had registered more than 780,000 of the devices with the country’s utility regulator as of December. They’ve installed millions more without telling the government.
Here in the U.S., though, there is no market for balcony solar. Ward, a Republican state representative in Utah who learned about the tech last year, wants that to change. The way he sees it, this is an obvious solution to surging power demand. “You look over there and say, ‘Well, that’s working,’” he said. “So what is it that stops us from having it here?”
His colleagues agree. Earlier this year, the Legislature unanimously passed a bill he sponsored to boost the tech, and Republican Gov. Spencer Cox signed it. HB 340 exempts portable solar devices from state regulations that require owners of rooftop solar arrays and other power-generating systems to sign an interconnection agreement with their local utility. These deals, and other “soft costs” like permits, can nearly double the price of going solar.
Utah’s law marks the nation’s first significant step to remove barriers to balcony solar — but bigger obstacles remain. Regulations and standards governing electrical devices haven’t kept pace with development of the technology, and it lacks essential approvals required for adoption — including compliance with the National Electrical Code and a product safety standard from Underwriters Laboratories. Nothing about the bill Ward wrote changes that: Utahans still can’t install balcony solar because none of the systems have been nationally certified.
These challenges will take time and effort to overcome, but they’re not insurmountable, advocates of the technology said. Even now, a team of entrepreneurs and research scientists, backed by federal funding, are creating these standards. Their work mirrors what happened in Germany nearly a decade ago, when clean energy advocates and companies began lobbying the country’s electrical certification body to amend safety regulations to legalize balcony solar.
In 2017, Verband der Elektrotechnik, or VDE, a German certification body that issues product and safety standards for electrical products, released the first guideline that allowed for balcony solar systems. While such systems existed before VDE took this step, the benchmark it established allowed manufacturers to sell them widely, creating a booming industry.
“Relentless individuals” were key to making that happen, said Christian Ofenheusle, the founder of EmpowerSource, a Berlin-based company that promotes balcony solar. Members of a German solar industry association spent years advocating for the technology and worked with VDE to carve a path toward standardizing balcony solar systems. The initial standard was followed by revised versions in 2018 and 2019 that further outlined technical requirements.
The regulatory structure has continued to evolve. Ofenheusle has worked with other advocates to amend grid safety standards, create simple online registration for plug-in devices, and enshrine renters’ right to balcony solar. Politicians supported such efforts because they see the tech easing the nation’s reliance on Russian natural gas. Cities like Berlin and Munich have provided millions of euros in subsidies to help households buy these systems, and the country is creating a safety standard for batteries that can store the energy for later use.
Meanwhile, the United States has yet to take the first step of creating a safety standard for the technology. U.S. electrical guidelines don’t account for the possibility of plugging a power-generating device into a household outlet. The nation also operates on a different system that precludes simply copying and pasting Germany’s rules. The U.S. grid, for example, operates at 120 volts, while that country’s grid operates at 230 volts.
Without proper standards, a balcony solar system could pose several hazards.
One concern is a phenomenon called breaker masking. Within a home, a single circuit can provide power to several outlets. Each circuit is equipped with a circuit breaker, a safety device within the electrical panel that shuts off power if that circuit is overloaded, which happens when too many appliances try to draw too much electricity at the same time. That prevents overheating or a fire. When a balcony solar device sends power into a circuit while other appliances are drawing power from the circuit, the breaker can’t detect that added power supply. If the circuit becomes overloaded — imagine turning on your TV while a space heater is running and you’re charging your laptop, all in the same room — the circuit breaker might fail to activate.
This was a concern in Germany, so it developed standards that limit balcony solar units to just 800 watts, about half the amount used by a hairdryer. That threshold is considered low enough that even in the country’s oldest homes, the wiring can withstand the heating that occurs in even the worst of worst-case scenarios, said Sebastian Müller, chair of the German Balcony Solar Association, a consumer education and advocacy group. As a result, Ofenheusle said there haven’t been any cases of breaker masking causing harm. In fact, with millions of the devices installed nationwide, Germany has yet to see any safety issues beyond a few cases where someone tampered with the devices to add a car battery or other unsuitable hardware, he said.
Another issue in the U.S. is the lack of a compatible safety device called a ground fault circuit interrupter, or a GFCI. They are typically built into outlets installed near water sources, like a sink, washing machine, or bathtub. They’re designed to minimize the risk of electric shock by cutting off power when, for example, a hairdryer falls into a sink. Yet there are no certified GFCI outlets in the U.S. designed for use with devices that consume power, like a blender, and those that generate it, like a balcony solar setup. Germany’s equivalent of a GFCI, called a residual current device, can detect bidirectional power flows, said Andreas Schmitz, a mechanical engineer and YouTuber in Germany who makes videos about balcony solar.
Some people have raised concerns about the shock risk of touching the metal prongs of a plug after unplugging a balcony solar device. German regulators accounted for that by requiring the microinverter — which converts currents from the panel into electricity fed into the home — shut down immediately in an outage or when it is suddenly unplugged. Most of them already have this feature, but any U.S. standard will likely need to formalize that requirement.
The lack of an Underwriters Laboratories, or UL, standard is perhaps the biggest obstacle to the adoption of balcony solar. The company certifies the safety of thousands of household electrical products; according to Iowa State University, “every light bulb, lamp, or outlet purchased in the U.S. usually has a UL symbol and says UL Listed.” This assures customers that the product follows nationally recognized guidelines and can be used without the risk of a fire or shock.
While some companies have sold plug-in solar devices in the U.S. without a UL listing, the company’s seal of approval typically is a prerequisite for selling products on the wider market. Consumers might be wary of using something that lacks its approval. Utah’s new balcony solar policy, for example, specifies that the law applies only to UL-listed products.
Achim Ginsberg-Klemmt, vice president of engineering at the plug-in solar startup GismoPower, has been working on creating such a standard for more than a year and a half. In 2023, the Department of Energy awarded his company a grant to work with UL to develop a standard.
GismoPower sells a mobile carport with a roof of solar panels and an integrated electric vehicle charger. Unlike rooftop solar, the system doesn’t need to be mounted in place but can be rolled onto a driveway and plugged in, generating electricity for the car, house, and the grid. “We’re basically taking rooftop solar to the next level” by making it portable and accessible for renters, Ginsberg-Klemmt said. The product is in use at pilot sites nationwide, though a lack of standardized rules for plug-in solar has forced the company to negotiate interconnection agreements with local utilities — a time-consuming and sometimes costly process.
GismoPower’s product avoids one of the biggest technical challenges with balcony solar by plugging into a dedicated 240-volt outlet, the kind typically used for dryers. Such an outlet serves a single appliance and uses a dedicated circuit, sidestepping the risk of overloading. But it runs headlong into the same obstacle of lacking a compatible UL standard. Ginsberg-Klemmt is working with researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, other entrepreneurs, and engineers at Underwriters Laboratories to develop such a standard, but it hasn’t been easy. “We have found so many roadblocks,” he said.
One major sticking point is that any standard must comply with the National Electrical Code, a set of guidelines for electrical wiring in buildings that does not allow for the installation of plug-in energy systems like balcony solar. The rules are issued by the National Fire Protection Association, a nonprofit trade association, and adopted on a state-by-state basis.
The code is updated every three years, with the next iteration due later this year for the 2026 edition. Ginsberg-Klemmt and his working group submitted recommendations for amending the code to allow plug-in solar — and every one of them was rejected in October.
Jeff Sargent, the National Fire Protection Association’s staff liaison to the National Electrical Code committee, said that this is the first time the organization had received public comments about plug-in solar systems. For now, it cannot consider amendments to allow their use until a compatible ground fault circuit interrupter exists, he said. Once that’s available, he said, the association can ensure that outdoor outlets can be safely used for balcony solar.
Electrical standards are constantly evolving, and it often takes more than one cycle of code changes to allow for new products, said Sargent. Ginsberg-Klemmt said his group will continue to pursue other avenues to amend the codes.
Until that happens, a UL standard for plug-in solar is unlikely to go anywhere. But interest in plug-in energy solutions isn’t going away, and decision-makers will have to adjust to that reality eventually, Ward said. It happened in Germany, where people across the political spectrum have embraced the technology. Ward believes the same thing will happen here. The way he sees it, “It’s just a good thing if you set up a system so people have a way to take care of as much of their own problems as they can.”
Illinois is going to need a whole lot more workers to realize its clean energy aspirations.
The state has some of the nation’s most ambitious climate laws, with a target of transitioning to 100% clean energy by 2050. In 2030 — just five years from now — it aims to achieve 40% renewable energy.
The shift away from fossil fuels could create more than 150,000 jobs in Illinois by mid-century, according to a 2022 study commissioned by ComEd, the state’s largest utility.
Since 2012, ComEd has offered a suite of what it calls “Academy” training programs that are helping to meet that need, preparing a diverse pool of more than 1,000 residents from in and around Chicago for entry-level positions in the construction, utility, and clean energy fields.
“We are delivering clean energy 24/7, 365 [days a year] — reliable power to 9 million people across Northern Illinois,” Laticia Holbert, senior workforce development manager for ComEd, told Canary Media. “And so it’s our duty to make sure that we are working with our communities to get a talent pipeline. We are proud of the legacy that we have done throughout our training programs, and we continue to expand.”
The goal of the programs is two-fold — not only to increase the size of the workforce but also to provide employment opportunities for members of environmental justice communities, who for decades have borne the brunt of adverse effects from fossil-fuel extraction. Training programs aimed at these groups, advocates point out, help to ensure that the clean energy transition does not perpetuate the injustices of the fossil-fuel economy.
“We are partnering with the community to make sure that we’re bringing in a diverse talent pipeline, by delivering targeted programs to ensure that more local residents are prepared for, I like to say, good-paying jobs [with] family-sustaining wages,” Holbert said. “We know that is really critical for our communities. We know, with the current climate [and] how clean energy is really revolutionizing, how we need to look at the demand for jobs.”
In mid-April, ComEd and a coalition of companies, labor organizations, and community groups celebrated 73 new graduates from two of the utility’s job training programs, Construct Infrastructure Academy and Craft Academy, at the University of Illinois Chicago Forum. U.S. Rep. Danny K. Davis (D) spoke at the event, as did the CEO of ComEd and representatives of the company United Scrap Metal and the nonprofit Chicago Urban League.
Britney Evans, a 2025 graduate of ComEd’s Construct program who spoke at the ceremony, said that the training she received sets her up to succeed in the trades.
“From the build day to the job shadows and coursework, the Construct program gave me the boost I needed to build my professional network, be challenged, and find new opportunities,” Evans said. “It really helped me understand the daily realities and benefits of the construction industry, and now my classmates and I will be able to break through all the glass ceilings and advance further in our lives and careers.”
Another of ComEd’s Academy training programs, which was not represented at the event, is the Power Up Academy, which provides participants the opportunity to earn design and engineering industry-required certifications for careers related to the clean energy sector. Launched in 2023 in partnership with the City Colleges of Chicago, the 14-week Power Up Academy program is designed to remove barriers to entry for local residents pursuing engineering-related careers. The program attained accreditation in 2024, enabling past and future participants to qualify for up to 13 credit hours toward future degree programs.
Each of ComEd’s three programs provides training at no charge to participants, along with a stipend during the program and ongoing career guidance and financial support after completion, Holbert said.
Approximately 70% of graduates across all of ComEd’s Academy programs land in entry-level positions with the utility or its more than 40 partner employers, taking on roles such as project coordinators, construction workers, lineworkers, design technicians, and underground locators, who help identify where infrastructure is buried.
Historically, more than 95% of program participants have been people of color, and 25% have been women. This year’s class of graduates is comprised of more than 90% people of color and nearly 20% women, according to ComEd.
Participants must be at least 18 years old, have earned either a high school diploma or GED certificate, demonstrate 10th-grade-level math and reading skills, and hold a valid driver’s license, Holbert said.
ComEd also requires potential students to complete an admissions interview along with a drug test and background check. However, individuals with past drug use or who were formerly incarcerated are not automatically disqualified. Consideration is made on a case-by-case basis, Holbert said.
“So, for returning citizens, we welcome them in the program,” Holbert said.
Of the 73 participants who graduated in April, 64 had taken part in the Construct Infrastructure Academy. During the 11-week program, participants learned basic construction skills and earned industry certifications such as a commercial driver’s license and Occupational Safety and Health Administration training. They also learned about heat pumps, induction stoves, and solar panels.
Participants also had the opportunity to shadow and learn from industry partners. For instance, in partnership with Habitat for Humanity of Chicago, this year’s Construct students helped build homes across Chicagoland’s South and Southwest Sides as part of their training curriculum. During a recent Habitat for Humanity Chicago Build Day, they tiled bathrooms, hung kitchen cabinets, added trim and molding, and painted walls. The project allowed participants to apply their newfound knowledge on safety techniques, handling basic hand tools, and working as a team.
Meanwhile, the nine Craft Academy graduates completed a physically demanding six-week training program that requires utility-pole climbing, a prerequisite experience for an apprenticeship to become an overhead lineworker. Overhead lineworkers play a critical role in maintaining and modernizing the power grid. That task is essential for meeting rising electricity demands as people purchase more EVs and electrify their homes and businesses. These graduates are now eligible for scholarships to the Dawson Technical Institute Overhead Electrical Line Worker program of the City Colleges of Chicago, which will enable them to pursue careers in the electric utility industry.
“We are honored to have joined forces with ComEd over the last 13 years in connecting members of our communities to training opportunities that can change the trajectory of their lives,” said Chicago Urban League CEO Karen Freeman-Wilson during the graduation ceremony. “The Construct and Craft programs represent a gateway to lucrative jobs that can provide the chance to build lasting careers and generational wealth.”
ComEd uses money from its own budget to run the training programs, Holbert said. No federal funds are involved.
“I don’t think [the present political climate] has any impact at all because we have to hire people to work on our grid, our system,” she said. “So we need talented people. That’s just what our mission is. So nothing’s changed about how we’re doing and what we’re doing.”
A clarification was made on May 1, 2025: This story originally stated that Construct students learn about installing heat pumps, induction stoves, and solar panels. The students learn about this equipment generally but are not trained in installation. The story also originally said that about 70% of graduates from ComEd’s training programs are employed by the utility and its partners. It has been updated to clarify that this figure is for ComEd’s Academy programs specifically, not all of its training programs.
Clean energy is the most popular form of energy in the world. By a long shot.
More than 90% of the new energy capacity built worldwide last year was clean, per data from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). That’s a new high watermark for solar, wind, and other renewable energy resources.
Due to plummeting costs and global decarbonization policies, clean energy has accounted for most of the world’s new energy resources for several years now. Since 2012, renewables have consistently made up more than half of new energy generation added to global grids.
But the trend has accelerated significantly, the result of a simultaneous slowdown in fossil-fuel power plant construction and a rapid buildout of carbon-free installations. Last year, over 585 gigawatts of new clean energy were built, per IRENA, more than three-quarters of which were solar. Meanwhile, just 47 GW of non-renewable power generation were added.
Overall, renewable resources produced around 32% of global electricity in 2024. If you add in nuclear, carbon-free sources accounted for 40% — a record-high figure.
Nevertheless, emissions from the global power sector have not declined. In fact, they rose by 1.7% last year compared with 2023, per International Energy Agency data shared with Canary Media. There are a few reasons for this.
For one, although renewables dominate new construction, the world still has a massive fleet of fossil-fired power plants, and those continue to tear through huge volumes of coal, gas, and oil to keep the lights on. Also, the amount of fossil fuels the world burns, and the amount of fossil-fueled power plants it builds, are both still climbing, albeit at a slower rate.
The problem is particularly acute in China and India, very large countries in which coal generates a disproportionately high percentage of electricity compared to the rest of the world. The U.S., which has cumulatively emitted more CO2 than any country and is currently the second-biggest source of greenhouse gases in the world, has seen power sector emissions fall over the last 15 years thanks to cheap fracked gas and even cheaper renewables.
Rising power demand is also a thorn in the side of decarbonization efforts. As hotter summers drive up the use of air-conditioning and large industrial power customers like data centers expand, new clean electrons are often simply meeting new demand rather than enabling old polluting power plants to shutter.
Still, there’s no arguing with the fact that the global power system is moving toward clean energy and away from fossil fuels. The problem is that this shift is happening too slowly. And when it comes to averting the worst of the climate crisis, pace matters just as much as direction.
The largest solar farm east of the Mississippi River now provides 100% of the electricity powering Loyola University in Chicago, and starting next fall the solar array will also be part of the university’s lesson plans.
The power purchase agreements that made the Double Black Diamond solar farm possible include “unique” components that promise Loyola access to the sprawling site and real-time data on its power generation, plus guest lectures from leaders at Swift Current Energy, the firm that operates the project, said Matt Birchby, Swift Current’s president. The Boston-based renewables developer owns several other Illinois solar and wind farms in addition to Double Black Diamond.
“It offers a lot of opportunities for faculty and students on campus,” said Loyola assistant professor of environmental policy Gilbert Michaud, who attended a ribbon-cutting for the solar farm on April 30, though the project has been producing energy since last year. “It’s good for me; it’s good for the students. We’ll write some papers.”
The 593-megawatt array also provides about 70% of the electricity used by the city of Chicago for municipal operations, including the city’s two airports. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson joined Loyola faculty and local elected officials at the ribbon-cutting, which took place amid farmland a three-hour drive south of Chicago.
The solar farm is crucial to Chicago meeting its goal of 100% renewable energy by 2025, Chicago Department of Environment spokesperson Kathleen O’Shea said. “This project demonstrates how climate action and economic investment can go hand in hand and benefit both our planet and people,” O’Shea said.
Swift Current is exploring ways to invest in Chicago-based workforce training programs to prepare residents for careers in the clean energy sector, Birchby said, as part of a community benefits agreement with the city, since Chicago is too far away to reap tax and employment benefits from the solar farm.
The $779 million project was built by union workers, mostly with modules produced domestically by Arizona-based First Solar — a boon during the post-Covid global supply chain crunch, Birchby said.
Electricity supplier Constellation Energy Corp., which also owns Illinois’ fleet of nuclear power plants, purchases the energy from the solar farm and passes the renewable energy credits on to Chicago, Loyola, CVS, and other customers. Chicago has a 300-MW allotment from the project, and Loyola claims 38 MW. That helps Loyola meet its 2025 goal of being carbon neutral, which is part of the Jesuit university’s larger faith-based commitment to sustainability, as officials told Canary Media in 2023 when the solar farm deal was announced.
Michaud, an economist and data analyst by training, looks forward to using data from Double Black Diamond in his courses and bringing students to the solar farm and surrounding area for fieldwork.
Michaud and his graduate students have studied the impact of large solar farms on property values and public attitudes toward utility-scale solar around the Midwest and in Europe. He has found that while people often fear solar farms will decrease their property values, that rarely happens. Instead, solar farms may actually increase property values, perhaps because of amenities facilitated by an influx of funding.
Sangamon and Morgan counties, which host the 4,100-acre array, are expected to receive about $100 million in tax revenue thanks to the project, according to Swift Current, which will also donate hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to local civic causes.
“We looked at how we could become a long-term resident of that community,” said Birchby. “At first, that’s done with proper siting. So with property values and other dynamics at play, you’re making sure you’re not adversely affecting landowners. We’re saying, ‘Hey we’re a corporate sponsor, and we are people who work and live in your community now. How do we give back and become true members of the community?’”
Michaud said he’s eager to study the economic and social ripple effects of Double Black Diamond.
“Can we talk to adjacent landowners? Can we look at the performance of the system? Will there be agrivoltaics?” Michaud said. “There’s obviously energy research we can do, and it might open up other doors — for soil science, water runoff, how does this impact the local bird or rodent population?”
Birchby said Double Black Diamond could be a place to experiment with agrivoltaics, wherein farming coexists with solar production. He said the land under and around the panels is currently planted with native, pollinator-friendly vegetation, and he’s interested in grazing sheep “as an alternative to seasonal mowing … further supporting the broader farming community.”
Birchby said the economies of scale for the large solar farm allow Swift Current to offer lower rates in 12-year contracts with buyers like Loyola and Chicago that are “almost like a marriage.”
“We struck up relationships and partnerships where we’ve been able to navigate hand in hand,” said Birchby. “I’m thrilled with the outcome the collective teams were able to bring together.”
Around the world, farmers are retooling their land to harvest the hottest new commodity: sunlight. As the price of renewable energy technology has plummeted and water has gotten more scarce, growers are fallowing acreage and installing solar panels. Some are even growing crops beneath them, which is great for plants stressed by too many rays. Still others are letting that shaded land go wild, providing habitat for pollinators and fodder for grazing livestock.
According to a new study, this practice of agrisolar has been quite lucrative for farmers in California’s Central Valley over the last 25 years — and for the environment. Researchers looked at producers who had idled land and installed solar, using the electricity to run equipment like water pumps and selling the excess power to utilities.
On average, that energy savings and revenue added up to $124,000 per hectare (about 2.5 acres) each year, 25 times the value of using the land to grow crops. Collectively, the juice generated in the Central Valley could power around 500,000 households while saving enough water to hydrate 27 million people annually. “If a farmer owns 10 acres of land, and they choose to convert 1 or 2 acres to a solar array, that could produce enough income for them to feel security for their whole operation,” said Jake Stid, a renewable energy landscape scientist at Michigan State University and lead author of the paper, published in the journal Nature Sustainability.
The Central Valley is among the most productive agricultural regions in the world: It makes up just 1% of all farmland acreage in the United States yet generates a third of the nation’s fruits and vegetables. But it’s also extremely water-stressed as California whiplashes between years of significant rainfall and drought. To irrigate all those crops, farmers have drawn so much groundwater that aquifers collapse like empty water bottles, making the earth itself sink by many feet.
Farmers can’t make their crops less thirsty, so many have been converting some of their acreage to solar. The Central Valley is ideal for this, being mostly flat and very sunny, hence the agricultural productivity. At the same time, farmers have been getting good rates for the electricity that they offset and that they send back to the grid.
Now, though, California has adopted standards that reduce those rates by 75% on average. For a farmer investing in panels, the investment looks less enticing. “The algebra or calculus — or whatever math discipline you want to reference — it just doesn’t work out the same way,” said Karen Norene Mills, vice president of legal advocacy at the California Farm Bureau, which promotes the state’s agricultural community.
Also, the study found that by fallowing land for solar panels, food production in the Central Valley dropped by enough calories to feed 86,000 people a year. But, Stid said, markets can adjust, as crops are grown elsewhere to make up the deficit. By tapping the sun instead, Stid added, growers can simultaneously help California reach its goals of deploying renewable and reducing groundwater usage.
The tension, though, is meeting those objectives while still producing incredible quantities of food. “That is always our concern about some of these pressures,” Mills said.
But this isn’t an either-or proposition: Many farmers are finding ways to grow some crops, like leafy greens and berries, under the panels. The shade reduces evaporation from the soil, allowing growers to water less often. In turn, a wetted landscape cools the panels, which improves their efficiency. “This is the compromise that’s going to allow for both energy independence and food security,” said horticulturalist Jennifer Bousselot, who studies agrisolar at Colorado State University but wasn’t involved in the new study.
Farmers are also turning livestock loose to graze under their panels. Their droppings fertilize the soil, leading to more plant growth and more flowers that support native pollinators. “The grass, it’s so much more lush under the panels, it’s amazing,” said Ryan Romack, founder of Virginia-based AgriSolar Ranch, which provides grazing services. “Especially when the sheep have been on site long-term, you can really see the added benefits of the manure load.”
Then, if a farmer decides not to replace the solar panels at the end of their lifespan — usually around 25 or 30 years — the soil will be refreshed with nutrients and ready to grow more crops. Even if a grower simply lets them sit for decades without any management, the fallowing can restore the soil’s health. “We really see solar as a collective landscape,” Stid said, “that can be sited, managed, and designed in a way to benefit both people and the planet and ecosystems as well.”
Each time a hurricane batters Florida, the country’s second-largest market for solar energy, broken panels pile up in landfills.
OnePlanet Solar Recycling has a plan to tackle that problem. The Jacksonville, Florida-based startup, led by a former steel executive who worked on the industry’s efforts to reuse scrap, just raised $7 million to start developing a first-of-its-kind solar recycling plant. The facility would break down busted panels and turn the waste stream into a new domestic source of metals such as copper and aluminum at a moment when tariffs are set to hike the price of imported materials.
The company plans to build its $90 million facility, dubbed the River City project, in Green Cove Springs — just south of Jacksonville, Florida’s most populous city. In 2027, OnePlanet aims to complete the first of three phases of construction on the plant and open the debut disassembly line capable of deconstructing 2 million solar modules per year. The firm set a deadline to triple capacity to 6 million panels by 2030.
At peak output, the company expects the facility to be among the largest solar recycling plants in the nation.
OnePlanet’s ambitious plans rest on its unique solar recycling process. The company uses existing technologies but developed a proprietary workflow for divvying panels by shape, model, and physical integrity before crushing, grinding, and chemically treating the hardware to extract raw materials.
“We’re doing a lot of work before we actually feed the panels into the recycling line,” said André Pujadas, OnePlanet’s chief executive. “We batch panels together so we can run campaigns to extract different types of materials, thereby optimizing the process and optimizing production and efficiency.”
Employing artificial intelligence and state-of-the-art sensors, OnePlanet can recover not just the panels’ glass, plastic, and silicon but up to 97% of metal concentrates of aluminum and copper, Pujadas said.
“You can recover the glass and still leave a fairly large amount of impurities in the remaining elements that complicate any further separation process,” he said. “That increases costs for recycling; then you don’t have as pure a product.”
Pujadas previously worked at the steelmaker Nucor, which led the U.S. industry’s adoption of electric arc furnaces. The technology turns scrap metal into new steel using electricity, offering a lower-carbon alternative to fresh steel generated from iron ore in a coal-based blast furnace. That experience taught Pujadas about where costs can mount in a supply chain and how much value a firm can create by freeing feedstock from contaminants.
Compared to that of other recyclers, OnePlanet’s approach will save the company money on maintenance since the pre-disassembly separation process avoids unnecessary wear on the machines, he said, basing the claims on the success of the firm’s pilot plant in Jacksonville.
The financing round announced Tuesday will “be used for final engineering, environmental permits, master recycling agreements, and long–lead time items,” Pujadas said.
The funding “reflects our belief that solar module recycling is not only necessary — it is investable at scale, with durable tailwinds driven by regulation, economics, and resource security,” Ashlynn Horras, partner at the climate-focused venture firm Khasma Capital, said in a statement. Khasma Capital led OnePlanet’s recent seed round.
Among the biggest challenges for recycling is finding cheap methods to transport panels to the processing facility. Shipping busted equipment from Texas, Pujadas said, is more expensive than hauling in panels from Puerto Rico. The location near Jacksonville not only has access to a Class I railroad and a port, he said, but to a lot of local material from within the state itself.
OnePlanet is also getting some help from the Inflation Reduction Act. The company’s facility will be funded in part by a $14.5 million investment from the Department of Energy’s competitive 48C tax credit awarded last year.
Pujadas said “the jury is still out” on whether President Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress will revoke the program.
“At the end of the day, I’m happy for the vote of confidence from the Department of Energy that this project presented some level of viability and can have a positive effect on domestic value chains,” he said. “Whether or not 48C comes to fruition or not, it’s not going to prevent us from continuing with the River City project.”
While he said tariffs may negatively impact the broader economy, the trade levies are expected to raise the price of key raw materials like aluminum, copper, and silicon, for which OnePlanet can offer a new domestic source.
“There’s a lot of unknowns on the tariff side,” Pujadas said. “But overall if there’s upward pricing pressure, the aluminum we produce will go up, the silicon will go up, and the copper will go up.”
A correction was made on April 22, 2025: The final quote in this piece initially read “the aluminum we procure will go up,” when it should have read “the aluminum we produce will go up.”
The clean energy industry has had plenty to contend with since President Donald Trump resumed office: rapidly fluctuating tariffs, financial market chaos, and both rhetorical and practical attacks on Joe Biden’s policies to support decarbonization efforts.
Despite those headwinds, stalwart Tennessee-based solar developer Silicon Ranch closed a major equity investment this month, raising $500 million from Danish fund AIP Management. Notably, Silicon Ranch hadn’t even gone out for a fund raise, Chief Commercial Officer Matt Beasley said. But, after CEO Reagan Farr met AIP members by chance at a conference in New York last year, the conversation evolved, and soon Silicon Ranch leaders were flying to Copenhagen to close the deal.
The developer’s last fund raise was $600 million at the start of 2023, under entirely different macroeconomic circumstances: The economy was bouncing back from Covid, and Biden had recently signed the Inflation Reduction Act, unleashing hundreds of billions of dollars to bolster clean energy deployment. In contrast, Silicon Ranch’s most recent cash influx comes as the Republican-led Congress ponders whether to eliminate those same tax credits during this year’s budget-making process in Washington.
As an infrastructure investor, AIP has the leisure to look for returns over longer time horizons than, say, a venture capital firm. But Silicon Ranch is planning for growth even amid the Trump-era conditions: The company has already more or less tariff-proofed its operations and is working hard to meet power demand spurred by the same AI growth trend the Trump administration has championed.
The U.S. has been levying tariffs on Chinese solar panels since the Obama administration, when China’s industrial policies boosted manufacturing and helped push American solar manufacturers out of business. U.S. solar developers and installers have adapted to that reality, but lately, tariff policy is changing by the week if not the hour.
Trump announced radically higher tariffs on most of the world in early April. The so-called reciprocal tariffs were slated to hit the Southeast Asian countries that have become major sources of U.S. solar imports since earlier tariffs effectively blocked China. Days later, though, Trump backed down on his “Liberation Day” threat, at least temporarily. But a separate tariff proceeding at the Department of Commerce has just concluded and slaps tariffs up to 3,521% on solar panels from Cambodia, and less astronomical but still substantial rates on Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam.
“We’re pretty well insulated from the tariffs,” Beasley said. That’s because the company already reoriented its strategy to buying domestic equipment, in response to the supply chain disruption of the Covid era.
In April 2022, Silicon Ranch unveiled a master supply agreement with First Solar for 4 gigawatts of U.S.-made modules, and subsequently doubled down for another 2.2 gigawatts. That deal built on a longstanding relationship: Silicon Ranch was the first to install First Solar modules in the Southeast, Beasley noted.
The developer also signed a parallel agreement in May 2022 with Nextracker to buy 1.5 gigawatts of U.S.-made solar trackers — which tilt panels toward the sun throughout the day — and later added another 3 gigawatts. That deal anchored Nextracker’s decision to open a torque-tube manufacturing line in Memphis, Tennessee, localizing production of the key component in utility-scale solar trackers.
That domestic procurement strategy looked even better when Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act in August 2022, instituting tax credits for each unit of the solar supply chain made in the U.S. Now the decision allows for peace of mind compared to navigating the constantly fluctuating import duties.
“With both First Solar and with Nextracker, our domestic supply agreements have got supply availability and price locked in for the next few years,” Beasley said.
Tariff-free supplies only help if there’s still a customer to sell to, but Silicon Ranch is finding plenty in that department, too. The firm installed 950 megawatts last year, ending 2024 with 3.6 gigawatts operating under company ownership; it also signed power purchase agreements for nearly 2 gigawatts of new production across five or six states, Beasley said.
The firm, launched by former Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen (D) as he was leaving office in 2011, has always thrived by making large-scale solar happen in regions where it hadn’t been widely adopted, like the Tennessee Valley and Georgia. Now solar developers are finding they don’t have to do much convincing because utilities need all the power they can get to keep pace with growing electricity demand.
Right in Silicon Ranch’s backyard, for example, the Tennessee Valley Authority projects that in the next 30 years it needs to double or triple the capacity it constructed over the past nine decades, the utility’s CEO, Jeff Lyash, has said.
“With load growth being what it is, not just here in the Southeast, but really across the country, there’s a need for kind of an all-of-the-above strategy, regardless of political ideology,” Beasley said. Often “all of the above” is code for preserving fossil fuels in a changing energy mix, but Beasley means that bringing new solar into the mix will help regions fuel economic growth.
“This massive load growth does mean that every electron is valued, but what we say is the most valuable electron is the one which comes to market first,” he explained. “Over the past decade, we’ve proven that solar is not only the lowest cost form of new generation, but it’s also the quickest to deploy.”
To that end, the company is actively constructing its first utility-scale projects in South Carolina, in a deal with utility Santee Cooper and the Central Electric cooperative to source clean power for a Google data center. Silicon Ranch is also building its first project in Louisiana to serve Microsoft.
With all that power demand, compounded by Trump’s pledge to make the U.S. the AI capital of the world, Silicon Ranch doesn’t anticipate its solar developments slowing down any time soon.
One sign read “Let the Wind Power Our Future.” Others displayed nothing more than the giant gold seal of America’s largest electrical workers union. These logos and slogans stood out among the 100 or so people crowded on top of the marble steps of the Nassau County Executive and Legislative Building in New York on Tuesday, as they called for the right to continue building offshore wind turbines near the Long Island coast.
That right had just been revoked.
On April 16, the Trump administration issued a stop-work order that paused the construction of Empire Wind 1. The 810-megawatt wind farm was two weeks into at-sea construction. It’s also the anchor project of an in-progress effort to build an offshore wind staging terminal in South Brooklyn, which has been celebrated as a major economic win for the local, mainly working-class community.
“It was time to demonstrate the diverse support for offshore wind,” said Adrienne Esposito, rally organizer and executive director of the nonprofit group Citizens Campaign for the Environment. She said the group includes retirees, union workers, young people in job training, a charter boat captain, and a whale expert.
They’re emblematic of the broad array of stakeholders who stand to lose from President Donald Trump’s ongoing war on offshore wind, which started with a pause on new permitting and has in recent weeks escalated to attacks on projects already underway. These projects are central to the climate goals of many East Coast states, the economic development plans of neighborhoods and towns, and public health concerns of those who have lived for decades in the shadow of dirtier, air-polluting industries.
Empire Wind 1 is a critical component of New York’s strategy to address climate change and achieve a 70% renewable energy share by 2030. It’s the largest energy infrastructure project the state has undertaken in the last 50 years, according to a top state official who lambasted the Trump administration’s stop-work order as doing “irrefutable harm.”
“This project underwent extensive and robust federal reviews … and is already under construction with strong support from the local Sunset Park community and more than 1,500 construction workers currently employed,” Doreen Harris, president of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, said in a statement last week.
Since early April, vessels had been laying rocks roughly 20 miles offshore from New York City in preparation for attaching 54 wind towers to the seafloor in May. The project was supposed to go online in 2027. All at-sea work is now halted.
The Trump administration’s order didn’t impact the massive terminal being built along a Brooklyn waterfront to support the installation. About 1,500 people have been constructing the 73-acre offshore wind hub since June. But local supporters now worry what the order means for all the green jobs promised by the Empire Wind project.
“Offshore wind, if done properly, gave us a real shot at creating economic opportunities for a neighborhood and region that has carried the weight of environmental racism for too long. It meant good jobs and local investment for our local residents,” Elizabeth Yeampierre wrote in a statement issued Tuesday, the same day as the rally. She is executive director of the grassroots nonprofit organization, UPROSE, and a longtime resident of Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood.
For the past decade, Yeampierre has led efforts in her community to advocate for redevelopment of Sunset Park’s industrialized waterfront, a stretch of which has sat vacant since the 1990s. At one point, city officials considered plans to rezone the area for apartments and retail shops. Yeampierre pushed officials instead towards plans to rebuild a “working” waterfront that would generate jobs and place Sunset Park residents at the center of the energy transition.
That vision, the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal, is becoming a reality. The offshore wind hub, once completed by the end of 2026 if it’s not interrupted, will be used for storing and assembling wind turbines. Equinor, the Norwegian energy giant building Empire Wind, was planning to use it as a staging ground for not just Empire Wind but for a sprawling array of already-approved wind projects being built across the Northeast and mid-Atlantic by various developers.
The previous administration gave some level of approval to nearly a dozen offshore wind farms. But only nine projects, including Empire Wind, managed to get all of their permits before Trump took office. Another one of those approved projects — Atlantic Shores in New Jersey — has already been shelved, thanks in part to the Trump administration’s decision to claw back a previously issued Clean Air Act permit.
A spokesman for Equinor told Canary Media, “We will not comment about the potential consequences until we know more.” He said the company is engaging directly with the Department of the Interior to “understand the questions” raised about its federal permits, which were issued in 2024.
Equinor signed its federal lease for Empire Wind during the first Trump administration in 2017. Its project took over eight years to go from proposal to full approval, though President Trump’s interior secretary, Doug Burgum, who oversees the core offshore wind permitting process, recently suggested in a post on X that “the Biden administration rushed through its approval without sufficient analysis.”
That leaves Sunset Park community members to wonder what’s next.
“Unfortunately, that door of what is beautifully possible and necessary is being shut on our knuckles,” wrote Yeampierre in response to Trump’s interference.
Offshore wind promises cleaner and more reliable energy for New York and the East Coast. But for residents of Sunset Park in particular, these projects — and the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal that relies on them — offer benefits beyond that.
What’s also at stake is a real shot to revive Sunset Park, a mainly working-class neighborhood of Asian, Latino, and immigrant communities. Equinor has already given $5 million in grants to help local community groups, like UPROSE, build education and job-training programs around a new wind-power economy.
Maintaining Sunset Park’s industrial character is key to keeping housing affordable in the area, Eddie Bautista, executive director of the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance, told Canary Media in 2022. Many envision Sunset Park as a place where people have job training and good salaries without the air pollution that spewed from the port during its 20th century heyday.
“We were building a whole industry … and the problem with shutting down the project is that it really sends a signal to the developers in the market — like, what certainty is there?” said Lara Skinner, executive director of the Climate Jobs Institute at Cornell University’s New York City campus.
She fears that developers like Equinor may pull out, not for lack of commitment, but for lack of certainty that Trump will honor the federal government’s permits and approvals. And if the offshore wind turbines don’t get installed, she said, the wind hub in Sunset Park is in jeopardy.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, has expressed similar fears about the stop-work order and vowed last week to “fight this every step of the way.”
Meanwhile, some local Republican officials are pleased. Speaking at a press conference last week, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman sided with the Trump administration’s view that Biden-era permitting was insufficient: “We think there [were] shortcuts. We think there was false information. And a lack of public input.”
Esposito, the organizer of Tuesday’s rally, said politics should not be part of the Empire Wind debate.
“Look, offshore wind is not a Republican issue and not a Democratic issue,” said Esposito, who noted the threats of a warming planet and rising seas. “At the end of the day, we all live on an island.”
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