This summer, solar power generation globally could exceed electricity from nuclear power plants for the first time ever, as solar capacity soars and sunlight and daylight hours are long in the northern hemisphere.
Global solar power generation jumped by 34% in the first quarter of 2025 from the same period in 2024, according to data from Ember cited by Reuters columnist Gavin Maguire.
If the pace of growth is sustained though June, July, and August, solar output is set to top 260 terawatt hours (TWh) in the summer months. This would beat the average 223 TWh of global nuclear power generation from 2024, Maguire notes.
Last year, record growth in renewables led by solar helped push clean power above 40% of global electricity in 2024, Ember said in its Global Electricity Review 2025 last month. However, heatwave-related demand spikes led to a small increase in fossil generation, too, the clean energy think tank said.
“Solar generation has maintained its high growth rate, doubling in the last three years, and adding more electricity than any other source over that period,” Ember’s analysts wrote in the report.
More than half, or 53%, 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, according to Ember.
China and Europe are driving solar power’s global surge, but in Europe, the solar boom has led to negative power prices more frequently.
At the end of April, for example, a sunny weekend in northwest Europe plunged power prices in the region to hundreds of euros below zero as solar generation soared.
Negative power prices, while beneficial for some consumers in some countries, generally discourage investments in new capacity as renewable power generators don’t profit from below-zero prices.
The more frequent occurrences of negative prices amid soaring solar output aren’t conducive to increased investment in generation only, and highlight the need of energy storage solutions to store the excess power and discharge it at evenings when it’s most needed.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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