Renewables have overtaken coal for the first time. The next challenge isn’t generation - it’s resilience, storage, and speed.
Walk into any Spanish supermarket today, and you can see climate risk on the shelf. Bottles of extra virgin olive oil that went for €4–€5 a litre a decade ago are now selling for €12–€15, after heatwaves and drought slashed harvests. Spain’s agriculture ministry reported a 55% drop in output - the lowest in nearly a decade. Shoplifters didn’t target razor blades; they targeted olive oil. That’s not a metaphor, it’s the new economics of climate stress playing out in our food system, our inflation figures, and our national accounts.
Electricity is the lever that lets us push back. Decarbonising power is the single fastest way to cut emissions, reduce fuel-price exposure, and build a grid that can ride out wild weather. Do it right, and we don’t just cut tonnes - we cut volatility, costs, and risk. This isn’t a “nice to have.” It’s the operating-system upgrade for the century.
The inflection point is here, the data says so
In the first half of 2025, clean power didn’t merely grow; it overtook coal in global generation for the first time in history. Solar and wind produced more electricity than coal, with solar alone covering 83% of the rise in global demand - a pivot from promising to prevalent. China and India led the surge; fossil generation fell as new solar and wind came online at record pace.
According to Ember’s Global Electricity Mid-Year Insights 2025, renewables - including solar, wind, hydro, bioenergy, and nuclear - took the lead during the first six months of the year, marking a historic inflection point. The International Energy Agency’s Electricity Mid-Year Update 2025, which forecasts for the full calendar year, echoes that trajectory: renewables are expected to hold the lead through 2025 and permanently from 2026 onward, cementing their position as the world’s dominant source of electricity.
Behind those headline shifts sits a blunt economic driver: clean is cheaper. IRENA’s latest cost analysis shows 91% of new renewable projects in 2024 delivered electricity below the cheapest fossil alternative, avoiding up to $467 billion in fossil-fuel costs. Onshore wind and solar PV averaged $0.034–0.043 per kWh - not marginal, decisive.
Lazard’s 2025 LCOE+ study backs it up: even without subsidies, new wind and solar outperform new coal and gas across most markets. In a high-interest-rate world, technologies with short build times and no fuel exposure simply win more often.
Climate first - because everything else depends on it
The World Meteorological Organization confirms 2024 was the hottest year on record, 1.55 °C above pre-industrial levels - the tenth record-breaking year in a row. The UN Environment Programme warns in its latest Emissions Gap Report that only steep cuts this decade can keep 1.5 °C within reach. The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report ranks extreme weather and climate impacts as the top global risks for the 2020s.
As Spain’s olive oil crisis reminds us, climate disruption isn’t a distant concern; it’s a cost-of-living and competitiveness crisis. Droughts, heatwaves, and floods show up first as lost output, damaged infrastructure, and rising insurance premiums, long before spreadsheets register the loss.
Security and affordability, the language that moves sceptics
For leaders who don’t wake up thinking about emissions, talk security and cost. Power systems anchored in imported fuels are exposed to geopolitics and price spikes; systems anchored in local sun and wind are not. The IEA and IRENA both find that renewables reduce fuel-price risk and avoid massive import bills. When paired with storage and smart grids, they stabilise prices over time.
In the U.S., for instance, California combined a 75% jump in battery capacity with strong solar growth and delivered a 21% drop in fossil generation year-to-date, a 40% fall in July alone, while retail electricity prices rose only ~1%, compared with ~3.3% nationally. When you can shift sunshine into the evening peak, gas peakers no longer set the price.
Globally, battery costs have fallen roughly 90% in 15 years, and grid-scale deployments doubled again in 2024, adding over 45 GW worldwide. In the U.S. alone, 2024 brought 10.4 GW of new storage, and 2025 could exceed 18 GW. This isn’t a pilot phase; it’s the backbone of the next grid.
Resilience - engineered, not wished for
“Intermittency” once stopped the conversation; now it’s an engineering challenge we’ve solved. Flexible grids are emerging everywhere: batteries for fast response and peak shifting, long-duration storage for multi-hour coverage, demand flexibility, stronger interconnectors, and crucially, grid-forming inverters that provide the stability once delivered by spinning turbines.
In Western Australia, Neoen delivered the giant Collie “solar-soaker” battery months ahead of schedule and is now building a six-hour battery at Muchea. Collie’s capacity - 560 MW / 2,240 MWh, can charge or discharge energy equivalent to about 20% of average grid demand. That’s carbon-free flexibility, at serious scale.
The technology under the hood is evolving fast. Grid-forming inverters can hold frequency, support voltage, and black-start a grid after failure, tasks once reserved for fossil plants. Australia’s market operator has issued voluntary specs; NREL’s research in the U.S. shows similar success stabilising low-inertia systems. In short, we can now run reliable, inverter-based grids by design.
Elsewhere, Italy’s first national storage auction awarded 10 GWh of capacity, four times oversubscribed, locking in 15-year contracts well below expected price caps. That’s resilience at portfolio scale.
The playbook: five moves every government and grid should make
Accelerate clean build-out - The IEA expects renewables to deliver most demand growth through 2030. Convert that macro trend into local steel-in-the-ground: simplify permitting, prioritise grid-ready zones, and build the workforce to match.
Make storage a first-class citizen - Plan and procure batteries as essential generation. California’s deployment proves what scale can do; Italy’s auction shows how to finance it. Pay for capacity, ramping, inertia-like services, and black-start capability.
Engineer for stability - grid-forming as standard - Require grid-forming functions on new inverters above defined thresholds. Fund black-start demonstrations using renewables + storage. Swap “inertia” for “intelligence.”
Build the wires - quickly and fairly - You can’t decarbonise a congested grid. Australia’s Integrated System Plan and Europe’s REPowerEU both hinge on massive transmission expansion. Build anticipatorily, earn community trust, and cut lead times.
Price signals that reward flexibility - Today’s markets pay for energy, not timing. Introduce scarcity pricing, flexible capacity mechanisms, and time-varying tariffs to unlock demand response. Fewer spikes, more efficiency, faster payback.
What to say to the sceptic in the room
“Isn’t this too fast?”
No. The grid is already changing faster than most forecasts. In 2024 alone, the world added roughly 700 GW of renewables, three-quarters of it solar. Battery deployment nearly doubled. Short build times make clean tech the safest way to keep up with demand and retire ageing assets.
“What about reliability when the wind doesn’t blow?”
We’re solving it through a portfolio: short- and long-duration storage, demand flexibility, interconnectors, and grid-forming controls. Australia and California already show smoother evening ramps and collapsing fossil peaks.
“Isn’t this more expensive?”
No. On a new-build basis, wind and solar are the lowest-cost options across most regions; storage costs are plunging; and every renewable megawatt-hour avoids volatile fuel purchases. In 2024 alone, renewables prevented $467 billion in fossil-fuel spending. And the costs of inaction will be far higher.
“Why prioritise power when other sectors pollute too?”
Because electrification is the multiplier. Clean the grid and every EV, heat pump, and electrolyser gets cleaner automatically. Power is the foundation of decarbonisation.
What great looks like in practice
Big build, built smart: treat solar and wind like infrastructure, not boutique projects. Pre-permit zones, expand ports for offshore wind, run standardised tenders.
Storage everywhere: 2–4-hour batteries for peaks, 6–12-hour assets for stubborn evenings, and pilots for multi-day or seasonal storage.
Grid-forming as default: ensure new inverters stabilise the system. Publish specs, tests, and connection rules.
Demand flexibility at scale: dynamic tariffs, automated demand response, EV smart charging, and industrial flexibility markets, all cheaper than overbuilding supply.
Transmission that keeps up: build wires and social licence together; nothing else works without capacity to move power.
The prize: lower bills, safer economies, fewer shocks
Get this right and households spend less of their income on energy, industries hedge less fuel risk, and governments spend less firefighting crises. Clean power is local power - and local power is secure power.
Layer the arguments:
Climate: 2024 was the hottest year ever recorded; the decade ahead decides everything.
Security: renewables cut import bills and buffer volatility; grid-forming storage replaces fossil resilience.
Affordability: 91% of new renewables beat fossil costs.
Momentum: from California’s fossil decline to Italy’s storage boom to Western Australia’s long-duration batteries - proof in motion.
Every tonne avoided reduces the odds of climate-driven price shocks in your supply chain. Olive oil was a warning shot. Cocoa, coffee, wheat, maize, hops - all are next as heat stress and drought reshape yields. The fastest fix is to decarbonise the power running our economies, and then electrify everything we sensibly can.
Want the full evidence base?
Ember – Global Electricity Mid-Year Insights 2025https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/global-electricity-mid-year-insights-2025/
Neoen – Western Australia Battery Projectshttps://reneweconomy.com.au/neoen-starts-work-on-first-six-hour-battery-after-giant-solar-soaker-completed-four-months-ahead-of-schedule/
IEA – Electricity Mid-Year Update 2025https://www.iea.org/reports/electricity-mid-year-update-2025
IRENA – Renewable Power Generation Costs 2024https://www.irena.org/Publications/2025/Jun/Renewable-Power-Generation-Costs-in-2024
If you’re leading a business or shaping policy, the call is simple: treat power decarbonisation as critical infrastructure, with deadlines, budgets, and accountability to match. Build clean capacity fast. Wire it up. Embed storage. Require grid-forming controls. Reward flexibility. Measure success not just in megawatts, but in avoided bills, avoided imports, and avoided crises.
Because the next time a drought triples the price of olive oil, it shouldn’t remind us what we failed to change - it should prove why we did.
Photo credit Torquay Palms on Flickr
This post was originally posted on TomRaftery.com