The Daily Populous Monday December 22nd, 2025 evening edition
Authored by ember-energy.org and submitted by sg_plumber

Solar starting to take off in places that were once behind

In 2025, solar strengthened in markets that had long trailed behind the global leaders, as solar showed its potential to leapfrog fossil generation in emerging markets. Several countries outside the traditional frontrunners like China and Europe, are now recording sharper growth thanks to falling costs, easing supply bottlenecks and clearer policy signals.

In August 2025, Ember reported that there’s clear evidence of solar now accelerating across Africa. Imports of Chinese solar panels rose 60% in the 12 months to June 2025, with South Africa still the largest buyer but 20 other countries also posting record orders. Total imports reached 15 GW of capacity, up from 9.4 GW the year before. Some markets saw dramatic jumps. Algeria’s imports rose 33-fold, Zambia eightfold, Botswana sevenfold and Sudan sixfold, while Liberia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Benin, Angola and Ethiopia all more than tripled their imports.

Central Europe, a region once behind on solar generation, is now expanding faster than many traditional European Union (EU) leaders. Summer 2025 underscored this momentum. In June, Hungary generated more than 40% of its electricity from solar, while Poland and Czechia also recorded their highest monthly solar output to date.

By 2024, the ten BRICS countries accounted for more than half of global solar generation – 51%, up from just 15% a decade earlier. This rapid rise signals a major shift in the centre of gravity of the global energy transition.

chubby_pink_donut on December 22nd, 2025 at 16:26 UTC »

Here in the US we're probably six months away from coal powered AI data centers, spewing smoke and fireballs like in Blade Runner

wwarnout on December 22nd, 2025 at 14:02 UTC »

> ...becoming the new competitive edge for modern economies

...except for America, given that Trump wants to re-open coal mines, and has already removed environmental restrictions for oil. If they had ever been held responsible for their externalities*, by charging them taxes to help pay to clean up the pollution they had caused, they would have been noncompetitive long ago, and clean energy sources would dominate - to the benefit of all of us.

An externality is a side effect of an economic activity (production or consumption) that impacts a third party not involved in the original transaction, like a factory's pollution harming a nearby town (negative)

Red_Nine9 on December 22nd, 2025 at 13:43 UTC »

Try telling that to Trump and his corrupt fossil fuel goons.