Super fast growth in wind and solar

 From Gavin Mooney

Wind and solar generation is scaling faster than any other electricity sources in history.

This chart looks at the time taken for different technologies to grow from 100 TWh to 1,000 TWh of annual electricity generation.

✅ Solar took just 8 years
✅ Wind took 12 years
✅ By comparison, gas took 28 years, coal 32 years and hydro 39 years

Nuclear also reached the milestone in 12 years, but then its growth slowed sooner than wind.

Importantly, this chart is not measuring market share. It is measuring how quickly different technologies scaled once they reached meaningful levels of deployment.

And the story today is also bigger than generation alone.

Batteries are increasingly extending solar generation into the evening peak, while electrification is creating new demand for clean electricity in transport, heating and industry.

Much of this growth is being driven by improving economics, with wind, solar and batteries becoming increasingly competitive across a growing range of applications.

That combination is beginning to reshape energy systems around the world.

Renewables now generate more than one third of global electricity, and wind and solar continue to account for the majority of new power capacity added each year.

The pace of deployment matters because energy transitions are ultimately about scale. And by that measure, wind and solar are growing faster than anything that came before them.