Dave Jones

RATE MY “COAL COMEBACK” 🫵 8 government announcements are being repeated in the media as evidence of a “return to coal”. 🇮🇹🇯🇵🇩🇪🇰🇷🇵🇭🇹🇭🇧🇩🇵🇰 But how consequential are they.. really?!🧵

The latest on the global electricity transition... in just 15 minutes 💥 youtube.com/watch?v=7QRKfG…

Remarkable chart shared by @CleanPowerDave Has fossil fuel generated electricity peaked in every single OECD nation?

@JavierBlas Yes. Also in 2022... A 1-in-500 year drought led to the lowest level of hydro since at least 2000... ...with the French nuclear outages this created a large 185 TWh gap, equal to 7% of Europe’s total electricity demand in 2022. ember-energy.org/latest-insight…

CHART OF THE DAY: The 2022 European energy crisis was mostly about natural gas and electricity prices. The shock of 2026 is (in Europe) largely about oil. EU power markets remain largely stable (📉⤵️). A key reason is that France is producing lots of nuclear power this time.

European battery capacity is expected to grow 5x in 5 years to 2030, says Aurora's Richard Howard – but it will still be behind the US

China's clean power growth reached the next level in 2025. Clean power met all growth in electricity demand. Solar and wind met 94%. China added more solar in 2025 (336 TWh) than the entire world did in 2023 (331 TWh) Fossil generation fell for the first time in a decade.

Huge news from CATL, which has signed a 60 GWh sodium-ion battery deal with HyperStrong. This is the largest sodium-ion order ever placed and equal to half of all energy storage batteries CATL delivered in 2025. CATL claims sodium-ion mass production is solved. (More details electrek.co/catl-sodium-io…)

New data by @ember_energy shows: renewables overtook coal in the global electricity mix in 2025. Climate impacts are hitting every economy. Fossil fuel cost chaos is hitting households & businesses everywhere. Renewables are cheaper, and vital for national economic security.

ROUGH RULE OF THUMB: this thing will give you enough power to make 1 million AI tokens per day* *Can be a magnitude either way depending on assumptions (and much less tokens if you keep the solar panel inside your house).

When it’s this universal, it’s the economics not the policy choices.

NEW: Falling fossil everywhere: For the first time in 2025, fossil electricity generation fell in EVERY OECD country, compared to its peak. Solar and wind are helping the power sector to transition away from fossil fuels #TAFF

What's more, China and India also saw falling fossil generation in 2025. From OECD to emerging markets, fossil power’s global decline has begun💪 ember-energy.org/latest-insight…

NEW | Every @OECD country is now below its fossil peak – and the decline is going global 🌍⚡ For the first time this century, non-OECD fossil generation fell too. 🔗ember-energy.org/latest-insight… 🧵 1/6

On Saturday at 3.38pm, India🇮🇳 hit a new peak electricity demand... and 22% of it was met with solar☀️

@ember_energy released its 2026 Global Electricity Review (GER26) last week—an extraordinary report showing that 100% of new global electricity generation has been met by renewables. At the same time, the decade’s “twin energy shocks” (Russia in 2022 and Hormuz in 2026) are accelerating existing trends. What do the latest numbers tell us—and what do they mean? @gerardreid14 and I are joined by a great friend of the show, @KingsmillBond , Lead Energy Strategist and Director at Ember, to break it all down. We begin with the GER’s key findings, looking closely at China, the United States, Europe, and India. The figures are striking: in 2025, wind and solar alone accounted for all net global power growth—roughly equivalent to Japan’s total electricity consumption. And even that may be an underestimate, given likely gaps in data from Africa and behind-the-meter generation. From there, the discussion shifts from long-term trends to sudden shocks. These shocks act as accelerators. Consumers, responding quickly, are installing rooftop solar and buying electric vehicles at record rates. Governments, by contrast, often move more slowly, seeking to protect incumbents and hoping for a return to the old status quo. But that return is increasingly unrealistic. Looking beyond the numbers, the episode explores how energy shocks reshape the system. The oil shocks of the 1970s drove gains in efficiency and a wave of nuclear investment. Today’s shocks are pushing electrification, expanding renewables, and speeding up EV adoption. Four major long-term implications stand out: 1) Asia is set to electrify faster than the rest of the world 2) Transport electrification will accelerate 3) LNG will be pushed out of the power sector 4) The long-anticipated “peak oil demand” is drawing closer In summary, we are shifting from a world defined by range anxiety to one increasingly shaped by pump anxiety. Link to papers. - Ember GER26 ember-energy.org/latest-insight… - Twin Shocks ember-energy.org/latest-insight…

@HooverMouse @neso_energy they said they'd do zero last year, but they didn't. i can't blame them for being a bit cautious;)

@CleanPowerDave @neso_energy Think they need to always keep something online, to avoid the Spanish outage scenario. But getting this low is great to see

The day that @neso_energy lets all the gas plants turn off still hasn't happened... but it can't be far away... I'd love to be a fly on the wall;)

India will not be the next China for coal generation. Here's why: India's GDP per capita reached $10,000 in 2025. China was roughly at the same point 15 years ago. In China, a massive expansion of demand an coal generation followed (although that is coming to an end now as well). The difference for India now? Solar, wind and battery storage are now cheap and scalable. India's solar and wind generation per capita are already five times higher than China's were at the same GDP per capita level. Electricity demand is significantly lower for the same GDP as India's economy is more service sector focused. That means India's coal power growth is already stalling out much earlier. Even with some further expansion, it's likely to stall out at less than a third of China's recent peak output from 2024. Most of India's growth over the next decade will be powered by solar, wind and battery storage, not coal, gas and oil.

AFRICA SOLAR: wowsers, almost 4GW of panels in one month! Yes, it was prior to the 9% China export rebate changes, so a bit of a rise was expected, but even still! Records everywhere.. 🧵

Source: Chinese export agency, via Ember: ember-energy.org/data/chinas-so…

The rising price of running diesel generators I expect is playing a big role. Nigeria has the biggest reliance globally - but many of them are in Africa: