Renewable energy met all new demand for electricity in 2025, according to a new review of global power generation, halting the growth of fossil fuel-powered generation and highlighting the promise of clean sources like wind and solar.

The authoritative Global Electricity Review released annually by Ember, an international energy research organization, says clean sources — especially solar — are growing fast enough and are cheap enough that they are stopping new fossil fuel-powered electricity generation. Electricity from solar and wind increased while there was no change to the amount of electricity produced from burning fossil fuels.

“We’re really talking about a large-scale change in how the energy system works. And solar is among the most scalable technologies that can deliver fast change,” said Nicolas Fulghum, senior data analyst at Ember.

      • FireRetardant@lemmy.world
        3·
        4 months ago

        Yea this could be prevented by having adequate glass protection on the panels in areas where the risk of hail is worth that investment.

        Its not like traditional power generation fares any better in extreme weather. The renewables were what survived the ice storm outage in Texas while oil and gas plants went down.

        • SreudianFlip@sh.itjust.works
          2·
          4 months ago

          A more vertical angle or double sided would also mitigate that risk.

          Some places just get freak storms with boulder hail. Rare.

      • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.caEnglish
        1·
        4 months ago

        What a bunch of FUD. So the Texas hailstorm was fake news?

        Why bother to provide links when Lemmy just substitutes their own convenient versions of reality?

    • Kairos@lemmy.today
      3·
      4 months ago

      Oh no! “Thousands” of panels out of however many that article refused to say?? This is much worse than a nuclear meltdown or natural gas explosion.

      • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.caEnglish
        1·
        4 months ago

        out of however many that article refused to say

        It can be hard to read some text with one’s head up one’s ass, so I’ll highlight:

        • hail claims now average around $58.4 million per claim and account for 54.21% of incurred costs of total solar loss claims attributable to hail. This creates a gap between the insurance requirements for solar projects and what is available in the market, leading to project delays and cancellations.*

        The point was damage claims are so high insurance is pulling out.

        News Report of home solar damage.

        And

        News report validating the videos of damaged solar farms.

        But maybe your versions of reality don’t have hail, wind or ice.

        • Kairos@lemmy.today
          1·
          4 months ago

          I live in Arizona we barely have wind.

          I’m sure we can find a solution to creating more durable panels if we as a society give a shit and appropriately allocate resources.

    • Living_Dead@lemmy.ca
      3·
      4 months ago

      I do solar O&M for commercial sites. We have lost 2 panels out of our nearly 20,000 to hail in 16 years of operation. Baseballs and birds dropping turtles have killed far more panels for us.

      Largest killer is squirrel, those little monsters love the flavor of pv cable it seems.