Twitter/X

Last year the world installed more new solar capacity than every other energy…

2026-08-04 · 19:30 UTC ·@a16z ·0 min read

Brief

a16z reports that in the prior year global installations of new solar capacity exceeded the combined additions of every other energy source, contradicting two decades of IEA projections that predicted a plateau. The linked 2026 essay 'Base Power & the Future of Electricity' (by @espricewright and @mikemcg0) traces this ongoing exponential growth and includes a 2018 Blackstone analyst's insight on utility-scale batteries.

Why it matters

Last year the world installed more new solar capacity than every other energy source combined, per a16z's repost of 'Base Power & the Future of Electricity.'

Key details

  • The post claims the IEA projected solar growth would level off every year for two decades, yet solar's exponential growth continued; the linked piece is by @espricewright and @mikemcg0 (a16z, 2026-08-04).
  • The article includes a 2018 anecdote: Zach Dell, then a summer analyst at Blackstone, was studying the utility-scale battery opportunity and observed a clear marginal insight about storage economics.
Cleaned source text

"Last year, the world installed more new solar capacity than every other energy source combined, and very few people saw it coming. Every year for two decades, the International Energy Agency (IEA) projected that solar growth would level off, and every year the exponential has continued."

Base Power & the Future of Electricity, by @espricewright & @mikemcg0: a16z.news/p/base-power-and-t…

a16z (@a16z)

Article

Base Power & the Future of Electricity

By @espricewright & @mikemcg0

In 2018, Zach Dell was a summer analyst at Blackstone studying the utility-scale battery opportunity. “One thing became really clear to me,” he recalls. “The marginal

— https://nitter.net/a16z/status/2084679526311968792#m