Global statistics continue to reaffirm the role of electricity as the future dominant energy carrier. More and more energy services are being electrified, including through electric vehicles, while new sources of large-scale demand, such as data centres, are emerging at pace.
The International Energy Agency has already proclaimed this the ‘Age of Electricity’, as electricity demand outpaces overall energy demand. It is forecasting that global electricity demand will increase at a yearly rate of 3.6% from 2026 to 2030, which is at least 2.5 times faster than overall energy demand.
Meanwhile, the Energy Institute’s latest ‘Statistical Review of World Energy’ talks of a tipping point not only for the role of electricity, but also the source of that electricity, which is increasingly being generated from renewables.
Renewables, the review states, are now substituting rather than supplementing fossil generation; a significant statement, given that the Energy Institute is publishing a review that for most of its 75 years was published by BP.
An earlier report by Ember showed that record solar PV growth in 2025 meant that clean power sources grew fast enough to meet all new electricity demand; the first year since 2020 without an increase in electricity generation from fossil fuels and only the fifth year without a rise this century.
