international renewable energy agency

The LCOE for solar PV increased marginally in 2025, reaching US$44/MWh, up from US$43/MWh in the previous year.

The world added 510GW of new solar PV capacity in 2025, the most of any electricity generation source, according to IRENA.

The world added 451.9GW of new solar capacity in 2024, accounting for three-quarters of all new renewable power capacity commissioned last year.

The world will need to invest US$1.5 trillion per year until 2030 to meet the target of tripling clean power capacity by 2030.

Solar PV is set to account for 80% of the 5,500GW of new clean energy additions made by 2030, according to the IEA.

According to IRENA, the renewable energy employed 16.2 million people in 2023, of which 7.1 million jobs were in the solar PV industry.

The global weighted average LCOE of utility-scale PV plants fell to US$0.044/kWh in 2023, a 12% year-on-year decline from 2022.

IRENA has found that the world’s renewable power capacity will need to increase by 16.4%, year-on-year, to meet the world’s climate targets.

A new report into the world’s clean energy transition, has called for an expansion of global solar capacity to 5.4TW by 2030.

An IRENA report into the cost of producing power has found that the levelised cost of electricity in the solar PV sector fell by 3% in 2022.