It’s been a rollercoaster of a year for clean energy. There’s no better way to show those ups and downs than with a chart, and luckily, we made a lot of those this year.

As 2025 comes to a close, let’s focus on just the ups. Here are 10 charts that prove the clean energy transition is still marching on in the U.S. and beyond.

We started 2025 with news of a big win from the year before. The U.S. added 56 gigawatts of power capacity to the grid in 2024, and nearly all of it came from solar, battery, wind, nuclear, and other carbon-free installations.

Solar, with 34 GW of new construction, made up more than half of the new additions. Batteries had a stellar year, too, nearly doubling the previous year’s total.

March brought a huge victory for clean energy in the U.S. Solar, hydropower, biofuels, and nuclear were all part of a clean team that covered 51% of electric power demand that month, while fossil fuels accounted for the remainder.

It’s not a surprise that this win came when it did. Milder temperatures that arrive with spring mean Americans are starting to switch off their heat, but don’t yet need air-conditioning, creating a low-demand ​“shoulder season.” Still, this chart shows how quickly the U.S. has closed a yawning gap between clean and fossil fuel power generation.

The U.S.’s steel and ironmakers are recording slow but steady progress toward getting off coal.

Steelmaking’s reliance on coal makes it one of the world’s dirtiest industries, but all new capacity in the works as of May will use technologies that sidestep the need to burn the fossil fuel. That includes several electric arc furnaces capable of producing millions of metric tons of steel each year.

The U.S. does still rely heavily on coal-fired blast furnaces to purify iron ore. But forthcoming projects will all use direct reduction, which uses natural gas as a fuel — and ironmakers could eventually replace that gas with carbon-free hydrogen.

As of mid-year, the world was on track to spend $2.2 trillion on renewable power, low-emission fuels, the power grid, and other clean energy sectors. Fossil fuels were on track to reap half of that: $1.1 trillion.

It’s a big shift from a decade ago, when coal, gas, and oil investments dominated energy spending. But with China leading the way, clean investments have surged.

Europe had a squeaky clean June. For the first time ever, solar provided more of the EU’s power than any other source, beating both gas and coal power combined. Solar power provided 22.2% of the region’s electricity, with nuclear at its heels, and wind also beating gas generation.

Just a decade ago, coal provided a quarter of the EU’s power, while solar generated just a sliver. Now, those electricity sources are on track to trade places.

The first half of 2025 produced a worldwide win for renewables. January through July was the first time in history that renewables produced more power than coal over that stretch.

Solar’s monumental rise is the main reason for the shift: The source more than doubled its share of global electricity production from 2021 to 2025. And while coal still remains the world’s largest source of electricity, it’s declining while solar and other renewable sources are on the rise.

U.S. battery storage deployment has skyrocketed over the past five years, and that progress isn’t stopping anytime soon. Over the next five years, the country will build nearly 67 gigawatts’ worth of new utility-scale batteries, BloombergNEF estimates.

If that comes to fruition, the U.S. will have nearly triple the battery storage capacity it does now. And there’s evidence to suggest it will: The One Big Beautiful Bill largely left utility-scale battery storage incentives intact, for starters.

Energy storage is crucial for renewables to take root, as batteries can store solar and wind power for use when the sun isn’t shining and wind isn’t blowing.

The latest data shows solar and wind made a speedy ascent this year — so speedy that they’re more than covering new power demand around the world.

Between January and September, power demand around the world rose by 603 terawatt-hours compared to that same time period last year. Solar met nearly all of that new demand on its own, and with a boost from wind, was able to cover all of it.

That’s a huge deal for the clean energy transition. When we produce more renewable power than is needed to cover growing demand, that’s when we can start chipping away at fossil fuels.

EVs may have faced a year of setbacks in the U.S. and beyond, but they’re still on an upward trajectory worldwide. Nearly 11 million new EVs were sold around the globe last year, with most of those new EVs hitting the road in China. Sales of plug-in hybrids and hybrid electric cars are on the rise too. Compare that to 15 years ago, EVs and hybrids were practically nonexistent.

Meanwhile, internal combustion vehicles are officially past their peak. At their all-time high in 2017, global sales of pure ICE vehicles hit 79.9 million units. Last year, sales dropped to 54.8 million.

Our final chart of the year is the ultimate bright spot. While the vibes suggested this would be a dismal year for clean energy deployment in the U.S., it simply wasn’t. Solar, wind, and storage accounted for 92% of new power capacity added to the grid this year through November. It all goes to show that while fossil fuels still produce most of the country’s electricity, clean energy’s growth is hard to stop.