When it comes to worldwide electricity generation, there was a nearly 8% decline in April compared to April 2024, reported the International Energy Agency, an energy forum comprised of 29 industrialized countries under the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD).
In April 2025, total net electricity generation in the OECD reached 833.8 TWh, a decrease of 7.8% compared to April 2024. Of this total, 340.8 TWh (40.9%) was produced from fossil fuels, 352.6 TWh (42.3%) from renewable sources and 136.5 TWh (16.4%) from nuclear power. On a year-to-date basis, total net electricity production increased by 3.0% in the first four months of 2025.
Electricity generation from fossil fuels increased by 1.1% year-on-year in the OECD in April 2025. Generation from natural gas decreased by 1.6% y-o-y (-3.4 TWh), and generation from coal increased by 6.8% y-o-y (+7.3 TWh). The shares of natural gas, coal and oil as a percentage of total electricity generation were 25.6%, 13.6% and 1.1%, respectively. Similar to last month, the increase in coal-fired electricity generation was driven by the OECD Americas (+16.3% y-o-y, +7.5 TWh) and OECD Europe (10.8% y-o-y, +2.6 TWh). In contrast, generation decreased in OECD Asia Oceania (-7.7% y-o-y, -2.8 TWh). A Notable increase in OECD Americas was observed in the United States (+22.1% y-o-y, +8.7 TWh) and in OECD EUROPE Germany (+29.3% y-o-y, +1.9 TWh), Türkiye (+17.2% y-o-y, +1.0 TWh) and Netherlands (+149.9% y-o-y, +0.7 TWh) had a significant increase. On a year-to-date basis, electricity generation from coal increased by 7.8% in the OECD (+42.4 TWh).
Electricity generation from renewable sources increased by 1.9% year-on-year (+6.6 TWh) in the OECD in April 2025. The output from solar generation continues to increase (+27.4% y-o-y, +21.6 TWh), counter-balancing the decrease observed in wind generation (-13.2% y-o-y, -14.8 TWh). This trend was mainly driven by OECD Europe, where electricity generation from wind dropped by 25.5% y-o-y (or -13.5 TWh), driven by Germany (-4.7 TWh), the United Kingdom (-2.9 TWh) and the Netherlands (-1.8 TWh).
Nuclear power generation increased 3.0% year-on-year (+4.0 TWh) in the OECD in April 2025. Nuclear power production increased in OECD America (3.8% y-o-y, +2.4 TWh) and OECD Asia Oceania (+13.2%, +2.7 TWh), while it decreased in the OECD Europe (-2.3% y-o-y, -1.1 TWh). On a year-to-date basis, OECD Asia Oceania saw the largest increase in nuclear production (+16.1%, +13.6 TWh) during the first four months of 2025.
Highlight of the month
In Germany, the cumulative wind generation from January to April 2025 has decreased substantially compared to 2024 (-32.8% year-to-date, -18.8 TWh). Despite the considerable increase in solar generation compared to last year (+39.1% y-t-d, +6.7 TWh), the total renewable output is lower (-14.0% y-t-d, -13.7 TWh).
This gap has been compensated by fossil-based generation, namely coal (+18.2% y-t-d, +6.6 TWh) and natural gas (+13.6 y-t-d, +4.1 TWh).
