Electricity is expanding in both scale and reach. Global demand rose in 2024, while renewable additions accelerated; access, prices, sales and emissions show how differently the industry performs across populations and places.
Key Electricity Industry Statistics
The most useful headline measures span global activity, U.S. operations, access and the outlook:
- Global electricity demand increased 4.3% in 2024 worldwide, an IEA estimate.
- Global electricity generation grew by more than 1,200 TWh in 2024 worldwide, according to an IEA estimate.
- Renewables and nuclear supplied more than 80% of the increase in global generation in 2024 worldwide, referring to annual growth rather than total generation.
- Coal supplied 35% of global electricity generation in 2024 worldwide, based on an IEA estimate.
- Renewables supplied one-third of global electricity generation in 2024 worldwide, including hydropower, wind, solar, bioenergy and waste.
- Global renewable-capacity additions reached about 700 GW in 2024 worldwide, including actual and estimated additions.
- The United States produced about 4,429 billion kWh of utility-scale electricity in 2025, with the EIA describing the data as preliminary.
- Fossil fuels supplied about 58% of U.S. utility-scale generation in 2025, including coal, natural gas and petroleum.
- U.S. utility-scale generation capacity totaled 1,280,799 MW at the end of 2025, a capacity measure rather than actual generation.
- U.S. retail electricity sales totaled about 4,058 billion kWh in 2025, including net imports from Canada and Mexico.
- About 92% of the world population had access to electricity in 2023, an access indicator that does not measure reliability.
- Sub-Saharan Africa contained 85% of the world population without electricity in 2023, a share of the global deficit rather than the region’s population.
- Rural residents represented 84% of people without electricity worldwide in 2023, based on a World Bank-led estimate.
- The U.S. average retail electricity price was 13.63 cents per kWh in 2025, across all customer types.
- U.S. residential customers paid an average of 17.30 cents per kWh in 2025, an annual average based on preliminary data.
- U.S. conventional and combined-heat-and-power plants emitted 1,537,073 thousand metric tons of CO2 in 2024, including useful thermal output.
- EIA’s modeled cases show global electricity generation 30% to 76% higher in 2050 than in 2022, a scenario range rather than a single prediction.
- IEA’s main case projects annual global renewable-capacity additions rising from 666 GW in 2024 to almost 935 GW in 2030, a forecast.
Contents
- Global electricity demand and generation scale
- Global electricity mix and renewable-capacity trends
- U.S. electricity production, capacity and sales
- Electricity access and participation data
- Electricity prices by customer class and location
- Power-sector emissions and industry outlook
Global Electricity Demand and Generation Scale
The IEA estimates that global electricity demand increased 4.3% in 2024, compared with an average annual demand-growth rate of 2.7% from 2010 through 2023. Global generation grew by more than 1,200 TWh in 2024, while average generation growth was 2.6% per year from 2010 through 2023.
IEA, “Electricity – Global Energy Review 2025” identifies the following demand patterns for 2024:
- Buildings-sector electricity consumption increased by more than 600 TWh, or 5%, worldwide. The report’s total-final-consumption definition excludes power-plant own use and transmission and distribution losses.
- Industry accounted for nearly 40% of total global electricity-demand growth. This is the industry share of that year’s increase, not industry’s share of total consumption.
- Transport-sector electricity use increased by more than 8% worldwide. The measure is electricity consumed in transport, not vehicle sales, and the reported period is 2024.
- Fossil-fuel generation increased just over 1%, while natural-gas generation rose about 2.5% year over year worldwide.
These measures describe different parts of the electricity system: demand is consumption, generation is production, and sector shares describe where the increase occurred. They should not be combined as though they represented one population or accounting boundary.
Global Electricity Mix and Renewable-Capacity Trends
The 2024 global generation mix combined established fuels with rapidly expanding renewable technologies. Renewables supplied one-third of generation, while coal remained the largest single reported source at 35%.
| Source or activity | 2024 global measure | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| Coal | 35% of generation | Share of total electricity generation |
| Hydropower | 14% of generation | Share of total electricity generation |
| Wind | 8% of generation | Share of total electricity generation |
| Solar PV | 7% of generation | Share of total electricity generation |
| Bioenergy and waste | 3% of generation | Share of total electricity generation |
| Nuclear | 9% of generation | Share of total electricity generation |
The renewable shares above are generation shares, whereas capacity additions measure newly installed power-producing capability. In 2024, global renewable-capacity additions reached about 700 GW, including actual and estimated additions; solar PV contributed about 550 GW and wind about 120 GW.
Solar PV and wind together represented 95% of renewable-capacity growth in 2024 worldwide. That percentage applies to capacity growth, not to the share of electricity generated by those technologies.
All global mix and additions figures in this section are IEA estimates for 2024. The renewable definition includes hydropower, wind, solar, bioenergy and waste.
U.S. Electricity Production, Capacity and Sales Data
The EIA reports about 4,429 billion kWh of U.S. utility-scale net generation in 2025, with the generation mix marked preliminary. Small-scale solar PV systems generated an estimated 93.15 billion kWh separately from utility-scale generation.
| U.S. utility-scale measure | 2025 result | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| Fossil fuels | About 58% of generation | Coal, natural gas and petroleum |
| Nuclear energy | About 18% of generation | Utility-scale generation |
| Nonhydroelectric renewables | About 19% of generation | Utility-scale generation |
| All renewable sources | About 24% of generation | Hydropower plus nonhydroelectric renewables |
| Natural gas | 40.0% of capacity | Capacity share, not generation share |
| Renewables | 31.5% of capacity | Hydroelectric and nonhydroelectric capacity |
| Coal | 13.3% of capacity | Capacity share, not generation share |
U.S. utility-scale generation capacity totaled 1,280,799 MW at the end of 2025. Capacity indicates the amount of generating capability installed; it is not the amount of electricity actually produced during the year.
Retail sales provide a separate end-use view. Sales totaled about 4,058 billion kWh in 2025, including net electricity imports from Canada and Mexico; residential customers bought 1,515 billion kWh and commercial customers bought 1,493 billion kWh, each rounded by EIA to 37% of retail sales.
These 2025 generation, capacity and sales figures use different measures and populations. The EIA describes the 2025 generation mix as preliminary, and small-scale solar is estimated separately.
Electricity Access and Participation Data
Electricity access is a coverage measure, not a reliability or service-quality measure. The World Bank-led Tracking SDG 7 – The Energy Progress Report 2025 estimates that about 92% of the world population had access in 2023, and that the global population without electricity fell by 19 million from 2022 to 2023.
The remaining gap is geographically concentrated:
- Sub-Saharan Africa contained 85% of the world population without electricity in 2023.
- About 35 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa gained access in 2023, but population growth meant the region’s access gap fell by 5 million, from 570 million to 565 million.
- Central and Southern Asia reduced its population without electricity from 414 million in 2010 to 27 million in 2023; these endpoints are regional estimates, not a single-year connection count.
- Rural residents represented 84% of people without electricity worldwide in 2023, including about 451 million rural residents in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Decentralized systems are part of the access story. Decentralized renewable-energy technologies benefited more than 561 million people worldwide in 2023, and decentralized renewable energy supplied 55% of new electricity connections in Sub-Saharan Africa from 2020 through 2022; neither measure is equivalent to a count of new grid connections in 2023.
World Bank, “Tracking SDG 7 – The Energy Progress Report 2025”
Electricity Prices by Customer Class and Location
U.S. retail prices differ by customer class because the EIA measures separate annual-average categories. In 2025, the all-customer average was 13.63 cents per kWh, while residential customers paid the highest listed class average.
| U.S. customer class or location | 2025 average price | Unit and scope |
|---|---|---|
| Residential | 17.30 cents/kWh | Annual retail average |
| Commercial | 13.41 cents/kWh | Annual retail average |
| Industrial | 8.62 cents/kWh | Annual retail average |
| Transportation | 13.83 cents/kWh | Annual retail average |
| All customer types | 13.63 cents/kWh | Annual retail average |
| Hawaii | 35.72 cents/kWh | All-customer annual average |
| North Dakota | 8.20 cents/kWh | All-customer annual average |
The geographic comparison shows why a national average does not describe every customer. The 2025 figures use preliminary data identified by EIA as based on February 2026 information.
U.S. Energy Information Administration, “Prices and factors affecting prices”
Power-Sector Emissions and Electricity Industry Outlook
EIA estimates that U.S. conventional and combined-heat-and-power plants emitted 1,537,073 thousand metric tons of CO2 in 2024. The same plants emitted 808 thousand metric tons of SO2 and 1,112 thousand metric tons of NOx; these totals include electricity generation and useful thermal output.
The forward-looking figures are scenarios and forecasts, not observed 2026 results. EIA’s International Energy Outlook 2023 projects global electricity generation in 2050 to be 30% to 76% higher than in 2022, depending on the modeled case; the range reflects differing assumptions about economic growth, technology costs and fuel prices.
Across EIA’s modeled cases, zero-carbon technologies supply 81% to 95% of new electric-generating capacity installed from 2022 through 2050. This range applies to capacity added to meet new demand, not to all generation in 2050.
IEA’s Renewables 2024 main case projects annual global renewable-capacity additions rising from 666 GW in 2024 to almost 935 GW in 2030. It forecasts solar PV and wind to account for 95% of renewable-capacity additions through 2030; this is a capacity-additions forecast, not a generation share.
IEA also reports that government targets and plans assessed across 150 countries correspond to almost 8,000 GW of global renewable capacity in 2030. That figure aggregates stated ambitions, while the IEA main case reaches almost 9,760 GW in 2030, or 2.7 times the 2022 level, based on current policies and market developments.
U.S. Energy Information Administration, “Electric Power Annual”
U.S. Energy Information Administration, “International Energy Outlook 2023”
IEA, “Electricity – Renewables 2024”