Global Coal Electricity Generation by Year 2000-2025

About This Dataset

Electricity generated from coal worldwide in each year from 2000 to 2025, in terawatt-hours. Coal is still the single largest source of electricity in the world. The series is Ember Yearly Electricity Data, which aggregates national generation statistics; it measures generation rather than coal consumption, and covers all coal-fired plants.

✨ AI Insight

Coal generation grew 81 percent over this period, from 5,809 TWh in 2000 to 10,490 TWh in 2025, with the peak year being 2024 at 10,540 TWh. That growth is easy to misread. Coal share of world electricity actually fell over the same years, from 38.0 percent in 2000 to 33.1 percent in 2025, because total generation grew faster than coal did. Only five years declined at all: 2009, 2015, 2019, 2020 and 2025. The 2025 fall is small, 49 TWh or under half a percent, and it follows two consecutive record years in 2023 and 2024. On this data coal is plateauing close to an all-time high rather than retreating from it.

Source: Ember - Yearly Electricity Data

Key Findings

Auto-computed highlights from this dataset

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2024 leads with 10,540 in 2000-2025.

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Average value in 2000-2025: 8,645 · median: 9,122.

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Gap in 2000-2025: 2024 is 1.8× larger than 2000.