Solar BRICS: Emerging economies now lead the world’s clean energy race

Among the core BRICS members, China led in both absolute and percentage terms, adding 98 TWh in the January to April period, a 42% rise year-on-year. This increase in China’s solar power in just the first four months of 2025 was equivalent to Italy’s total electricity demand during the same period. It also contributed to a new milestone, with China’s solar and wind generation exceeding 25% of total electricity for a single month for the first time in April, as reported by Ember previously.

Brazil and India also recorded significant growth. Solar generation in the January to April period was 35% higher (+7.9 TWh) in Brazil and 32% higher (+14.1 TWh) in India compared to the same period in 2024. South Africa’s solar generation grew by a modest 3%, a substantial slowdown after the strong increases seen during the same period in 2023 and 2024.

Russia continues to lag behind in solar deployment, with minimal progress. Reported solar generation remained below 0.5 TWh in the first four months of 2025, another sign that Russia is quickly falling behind its BRICS peers in integrating more clean power into its electricity mix.

Solar power met over a third of the increase in electricity generation in BRICS countries in 2024, with all clean sources totalling 70%

Spearheaded by the rapid build-out of solar power in China, India and Brazil, solar met 36% of the increase in electricity generation across all BRICS members in 2024. This marks a major leap from previous decades — solar contributed 14% of generation growth between 2014-2023, and a mere 0.25% in the ten years before that.