Coal supplied 33.1% of the world's electricity in 2025, down from a peak of 40.8% in 2007. Yet the world generated 81% more electricity from coal in 2025 than in 2000 (10,490 against 5,809 terawatt hours), because total electricity generation more than doubled. This article uses Ember's open electricity data to show how both things are true, and where coal power has risen and fallen.

The short version

• A falling share. Coal's share of world electricity went from 38.0% in 2000 to a peak of 40.8% in 2007 and 33.1% in 2025.
• A rising total, now flat. Coal generation grew from 5,809 TWh in 2000 to a record 10,540 TWh in 2024, then slipped 0.5% to 10,490 TWh in 2025.
• The pie doubled. World electricity generation grew from 15,279 TWh to 31,734 TWh (2.1 times), so a smaller slice is still a bigger quantity.
• Wind and solar caught up with the growth. Of the 16,456 TWh added since 2000, wind and solar supplied 33%, coal 28% and gas 25%. Wind and solar went from 0.2% of electricity to 17.4%.
• Regions diverge. Coal generation in Asia rose from 2,039 to 8,646 TWh, while in the rest of the world combined it fell by 51%, from 3,770 to 1,844 TWh.

World electricity generation from coal, as a share of the total and in absolute terms, 2000 to 2025:

How the mix changed

Coal is still the largest single source of electricity, but the mix has shifted. Wind and solar went from almost nothing to about a sixth of the total, while nuclear and oil-based generation lost share.

Grouped, fossil fuels supplied 64.7% of electricity in 2000 and 57.4% in 2025, while clean sources (renewables and nuclear) rose from 35.4% to 42.6%.

Where coal power rose and fell

The world total hides very different regional paths. Using Ember's regions, coal generation in Asia more than quadrupled between 2000 and 2025, taking its share of the world's coal power from 35% to 82%. North America fell by 63% and Europe by 47%. Africa, Oceania and Latin America and the Caribbean changed by smaller amounts, and in the Middle East coal is now almost absent.

What this does and does not show

• Generation is not capacity or emissions. We count electricity actually generated, not the size of the coal fleet and not the carbon dioxide it emits. Plants can run at different rates in different years.
• A share can fall while the total rises. A falling share does not mean falling coal use. Both the share and the absolute figure are needed to read the trend.
• Regions are Ember's groupings. The seven regions here add up to the world total, but the boundaries are Ember's choice, and a region can hide large differences between its countries.
• The latest year can change. Recent years can be revised as more complete national data arrives, so small year-on-year differences (such as the 0.5% fall from 2024 to 2025) should be read with care.
• Electricity is only part of energy. Coal is also used for industry and heating, and this article does not cover those uses.
• No forecast. We describe 2000 to 2025 and do not predict what happens next.

Method and data

Data: Ember's Yearly Electricity Data (the long format release, 214 countries and economies plus regional and world aggregates), downloaded on 25 October 2026 and covering 2000 to 2025. We used the "Electricity generation" category, the "Fuel" breakdown for coal, gas, hydro, nuclear, wind, solar, bioenergy, other renewables and other fossil, and the "Total Generation" series for the size of the pie. Shares are Ember's own percentage values. Contributions to growth are the change in each source's TWh between 2000 and 2025 divided by the change in total generation. Regional figures use Ember's "Area" aggregates for Asia, North America, Europe, Africa, Oceania, Latin America and Caribbean and Middle East, and "the rest of the world" means all of those except Asia. One terawatt hour (TWh) is one billion kilowatt hours.

Citation and licence: Ember, "Yearly Electricity Data", published online at ember-energy.org, https://ember-energy.org/data/yearly-electricity-data/, accessed 25 October 2026. Ember releases its content under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) licence. Swift Lake selected the series, computed the shares of growth and regional comparisons, and drew both charts, so all derived figures and charts are our own calculations and are not endorsed by Ember.

Sources and further reading:

• Ember, Yearly Electricity Data (the dataset page) and the long format CSV used here.
• Ember, Electricity Data Explorer, to look up any country or region.
• Ember, Global Electricity Review 2025, an annual report on the same data with country detail and methodology.