Energy, record global investments of $3.3 trillion in 2025. Solar boom, but coal plants are back

Global energy investment to hit record $3.3 trillion in 2025, driven by clean technologies. Solar leads the transition, but coal is back, driven by China and India. IEA warns: more resources needed for electricity grids and developing countries.

Despite geopolitical crises and economic uncertainties, global investments in the energy sector will reach $3.3 trillion in 2025 , according to the new World Energy Investment report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) . Driving growth are clean technologies , which now attract twice as much capital as fossil fuels .

Low-carbon sources – including renewables, nuclear, grids, batteries, efficiency and electrification – will absorb $2.2 trillion . Investment is driven not only by the transition to Net Zero , but also by the growing weight of industrial policies , concerns about energy security and the competitiveness of electric technologies .

China confirms its position as the absolute leader: alone it invests almost as much as the United States and the European Union combined. In ten years it has increased its share of global investments in clean energy from 25% to almost 33%, focusing on solar, wind, hydroelectric, nuclear , batteries and electric mobility .

Photovoltaic is the technology attracting the most capital: 450 billion dollars expected in 2025. Storage through batteries is also growing, with over 65 billion . However, the growing demand for energy is bringing coal back into fashion, especially in China and India : Beijing has started the construction of almost 100 GW of new power plants in 2024 alone, pushing global approvals to the highest level since 2015.

Electricity networks receive only 400 billion per year , an insufficient level compared to generation. The IEA warns: to avoid blackouts and bottlenecks, by 2030 investments in networks will have to match those in production.

2025 will see the first annual decline in upstream oil investment (-6%) since the pandemic, driven by the slowdown in US tight oil . In contrast, liquefied natural gas (LNG) is booming with new projects in Qatar, the US, Canada and elsewhere: between 2026 and 2028 , global LNG capacity will grow at an unprecedented rate .

Africa , despite hosting 20% ​​of the world's population, receives just 2% of clean energy investment . In a decade, flows have fallen by a third. The IEA calls for more international public finance , to be used strategically to mobilize private capital in emerging countries.

The new World Energy Investment Report also includes an interactive data explorer , allowing you to compare investment by sector, source and country between the periods 2016–2020 and 2021–2025 , with detailed data on 19 countries and regions .