Record growth in clean electricity in India helps decline in global power production from fossils: Report

“The global fall in fossil (fuel-based power) generation was driven by a historic reversal in fossil trends in China and India, the largest and third-largest fossil power countries globally. 2025 was the first year this century when fossil generation fell in both countries,” the report said.

“In China, it fell by 56 TWh, marking the first decline since 2015… In India, a record increase in both solar and wind generation, combined with strong hydro output and lower-than-average demand growth, led to a decline in fossil generation of 52 TWh,” it said.

India added almost 38 GW of new solar energy capacity in 2025. This was the first time that India had installed more solar capacity than the United States in a year. The US added about 33 GW of solar capacity in 2025.

India also added more than 6.3 GW of wind power and about 4 GW of hydropower capacity. The total renewable energy capacity added in the year happened to be more than 48 GW.

Due to a relatively tepid growth in electricity demand, thanks to good monsoon and a milder summer, the increase in power generation from renewables more than covered for the increase in demand. Compared to 2024, India needed additional electricity of just about 49 TWh, while renewable energy produced about 98 TWh more than the previous year.

The findings of the Ember report are in line with some other estimates of the 2025 trends in India’s power sector released earlier this year.

In January this year, a study by Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), in collaboration with Carbon Brief, a UK-based climate-focused publication, had revealed that coal-fired electricity generation in India had shown a year-on-year decline for the first time in half a century, leaving aside the pandemic period. Coal accounts for the bulk of fossil fuel-based power generation in India.

In an earlier publication, released in 2025, CREA and Carbon Brief had also reported that India’s carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector in the first half of 2025 had shown a dip, the first time ever, compared with the same period the previous year (2024).

The year 2026, however, could be very different, despite projections of India adding even more renewable capacity than previous year. The India Meteorological Department has predicted a below-normal rainfall for the four-month monsoon season from June to September, which brings more than 70 per cent of India’s annual rains. A reduced rainfall not just brings down hydropower generation, but also results in increased power demand as farmers are forced to pump more groundwater to irrigate their fields. Low rainfall also means less respite from hot and humid weather, resulting in greater use of air-conditioning, further driving up electricity demand.