Solar power overtakes nuclear in global electricity generation
BBC analysis of Ember data shows solar now producing 13% more electricity than nuclear worldwide, years ahead of mainstream forecasts.
What to know
- Global solar electricity generation overtook nuclear in 2025 and is now producing 13% more power, per BBC/Ember analysis.
- Solar is projected to reach about 10% of world electricity in 2026, up from just 1% a decade ago, a roughly 2,700-fold increase while nuclear output stayed flat.
- The growth has consistently exceeded mainstream forecasts, including the IEA's, largely due to record-low panel prices driven by Chinese manufacturing overcapacity.
- The US remains the second-largest installer despite tariffs, with solar now capable of powering more than a third of US households, concentrated in states that backed Trump in 2024.
“assumed linear growth and slowly falling costs, and got both wrong”
Jan Rosenow, Professor of energy and climate policy, University of Oxford · BBC Future ↗ · Oct 22
Dave Jones Co-founder, Ember
Jan Rosenow Professor of energy and climate policy, University of OxfordEmber UK-based energy think tankInternational Energy Agency (IEA) Intergovernmental energy forecasting body
How it unfolded 2 developments, newest first · click a bar or a number to jump articlesposts
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Story circulates on Hacker News
The article is submitted to Hacker News, reaching the front page and drawing comment discussion alongside continued sharing on Mastodon.
“[Solar] generating more electricity than all the world's nuclear power plants is a pretty insane stat, for sure…”
— Dave Jones, Co-founder, Ember · source -
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Solar power IS nuclear power. It's just the reactor is really really far away.
2 more of the top 3 · 76 posts in this stretch
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😎 Article BBC: "'It's offensively cheap': How solar power is quietly becoming bigger than nuclear." #solar #engery #independence
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Usually solar and storage are a package deal these days for grid scale solutions. Mostly, storage is not really about providing long term storage but short term. It used to be that the sweet spot that makes the most economic sense was something like 2 or 4 hours of power (relative to the maximum output of the solar panels) but these days batteries…
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BBC Future piece republished and syndicated widely
The BBC article is reposted across BBC channels and shared on Mastodon and other platforms, spreading the solar-versus-nuclear finding.
“Solar is now the engine of the power transition…”
— Jan Rosenow, Professor of energy and climate policy, University of Oxford · source -
first by HN Best, 13d ago · also HN Frontpage, BBC
2 more headlines
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background
BBC Future explains the drivers behind solar's unexpected surge — The article attributes solar's rapid growth to years of underestimated projections, record-low panel prices driven by Chinese manufacturing overcapacity, and solar meeting three-quarters of global electricity demand growth in 2025, overtaking wind.
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background
BBC analysis finds solar generating 13% more power than nuclear — BBC analysis of Ember data over the 12 months to September 2026 shows solar clearly outstripping nuclear, producing 13% more electricity, with solar on track to reach about 10% of global power in 2026.
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background
Solar electricity generation overtakes nuclear globally — According to Ember data, global solar power generation narrowly surpassed nuclear generation for the first time in 2025, a milestone that went largely unnoticed at the time.
Also covered reported alongside — the timeline has no entry for these yet
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first by Demokratis.co.id, 13d ago · also Gadget Review
1 more headline
- Solar Outpaced Nuclear in Global Electricity Generation for First Time Gadget Review · 13d ago
What people are saying 21 voices from 4 sites · best of 76 · verbatim
- Nov 1
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The nuclear power we needed was always right over our heads. https://www. bbc.com/future/article/2026102 3-how-solar-became-bigger-than-nuclear # solarpunk # cyberpunk # solarpunkart # sciencefiction # future # community # ecopunk
- Oct 31
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Nuclear's electricity generation has remained more or less constant since 2000, while solar's has increased some 2,700-fold.
- Oct 28
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Solar Power is aan de winnende hand! In plaats van kernenergie moeten we nu vol op aan de gang met opslag van de bijna gratis zonne-energie! https://www. bbc.com/future/article/2026102 3-how-solar-became-bigger-than-nuclear
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https://www. bbc.com/future/article/2026102 3-how-solar-became-bigger-than-nuclear “Solar is now the engine of the power transition," says Jan Rosenow, a professor of energy and climate policy at the University of Oxford in the UK.”
- Oct 27
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nice o/ "it's offensively cheap: how # solar power quietly became bigger than # nuclear " https://www. bbc.co.uk/future/article/20261 023-how-solar-became-bigger-than-nuclear
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Solar is great, but we still need a rotating chunk of steel to stabilise the grid. In my country (Poland) on a good sunny day half of the grid is powered by renewables (in reality almost all is solar).But the beauty of solar is that it makes you independent from the grid. China makes the whole system. Cheap, but good quality solar panels. Cheap…
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Calcium batteries are also in development but sodium batteries are the big thing currently since they just started full scale production while calcium batteries are still very much experimental. You can watch this video about it.
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People put solar on their roof in Netherlands because of salderingsregeling. That shit is ending on Jan 1st 2027, and the reason you are having a hard time finding installers is because of the rush to get installations done before it expires. NL & Germany are not somehow unique, in Northern Europe. The reason they have high rates of adoption is…
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We can't go completely renewable either unless we use batteries, and those same batteries could be used as a buffer to allow the nuclear reactors to increase / decrease load as needed
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Two observation:1. This must be a nightmare to plan the maintenance of a nuclear-heavy grid (as we have in France.) Any nuclear project must be planned 20 years, including just "keeping" what you built 50 years ago. So, assuming they're not stupid and are reading the changes in batteries and PV, anyone working on that knows that, potentially…
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Better in many ways: true clean energy like solar and wind are the only sources of power that truly allow individuals, communities and regions to be self-sufficient. That would flatten the distribution of power currently held by a few national or international power/energy providers - that's why it has been so ferociously fought by them via…
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As long as grid operators keep an eye on their inertia figures and fault current handling this is great news.Synthetic inertia created by inverters can maintain grid frequency, but they cannot handle fault current. Without the ability to ride through disturbances, downstream protection equipment will fail to work correctly. If you hit a…
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Unregistered solar is huge in the developing world. In the Philippines, basically no one tells the utility they installed solar, because the net metering application is so expensive, comes with tons of red tape (read as opportunities for government officials to extract bribes), and only gives you billing credits anyway. So people just install…
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Nuclear produces a ton more power while occupying a lot less land and resources. I'm not saying we don't need solar, I'm saying we need more nuclear, especially if we hope to completely drop fossil fuel and such.
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I'd like to see more examples of (non-hydro) Gravitational Potential Energy Storage tried out. Very large containers full of sand, for example. If you have no mountains, a deep hole will do."Current levelized cost of storage ranges from $150-300 per MWh for established pumped-storage systems, while newer solid-mass gravity systems estimate costs…
- Oct 26
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Solar is bigger than nuclear. # SolarPower # Canada https://www. bbc.com/future/article/2026102 3-how-solar-became-bigger-than-nuclear
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It's been cheaper than nuclear for a while now, it was only a matter of time.Personally i'm waiting for the next iterations of Kesterite cells.If we can get single cells to crack ~20% efficiency. With a tandem cell architecture, it's going to become the new standard overnight.Durability of silicon cells or better, but orders of magnitude $ cheaper…
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Important not oversell the climate element, major Australian cities where most of the rooftop solar PV is aren't really any sunnier than southern Europe, and in some cases less so. I know there's not unlimited interconnection across the European grid to supply northern Europe but there's still nothing happening in Australia with PV plus storage…
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"È quasi offensivo per quanto è economico": come l'energia solare sta silenziosamente diventando più grande del nucleare
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Nuclear has quite low marginal price. It's bit above offshore wind and below lignite and hard coal. Not everyone has the place for self generation, not everywhere solar has the same output.
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months or rather years ? Do you think it is easy to set up brand new factory in Germany ? Without bureaucratic delays ? Without having magical exceptions like in case of FSRU terminals ?