See more from Canary Media’s ​“Chart of the Week” column.

Solar and wind developers around the world just keep getting defeated — by themselves.

Yet again, a record amount of new solar and wind capacity came online globally last year, according to the latest numbers by think tank Ember. The jump was sizable: Additions exceeded the prior year’s by 17%.

Not to pit friends against each other, but solar is the clear front-runner when it comes to renewables deployment. The world installed nearly four times more solar than wind in 2025. But wind can take solace in the fact that it grew faster last year, with installations up by 47% from 2024 — dwarfing solar’s 11% increase.

It’s also worth noting that nearly two-thirds of the added capacity came online in China, of course.

This renewables boom sounds like good news for fending off climate change, but things are more complicated than that. Lots of fossil-fueled power plants are getting built around the world, too, as energy demand skyrockets thanks to the AI boom and the electrification of cars and buildings. Still, the steady growth of renewables is chipping away at polluting fuels’ grip on the globe: Wind and solar generate an increasing share of the world’s power, hitting 15% in 2024, the most recent year Ember has data on.

Meanwhile, the argument for renewables is only getting stronger as the war in the Middle East spikes oil and gas prices worldwide, leaving countries that rely on imported fuels to pay through the nose.

Despite policy headwinds in the U.S. and elsewhere, there’s good reason to believe that wind and solar will keep notching personal bests. Photovoltaic panels and turbines, plus the batteries that store their energy for later, are fast and cheap to build, making them tough for electricity-hungry countries to say no to.

Ysabelle Kempe

is associate editor at Canary Media.