Good News About Clean Energy & The Environment
- May 3
- 3 min read
Global synopsis of all the positive stories OGN unearthed during April 2026.
First Time Ever: Clean energy met global growth in electricity demand. The structural turning point we have spent so many decades waiting for has finally arrived. It is very good news. Take a moment to savour it.
99: The extraordinary percentage decline in battery costs over the past three decades.
24/7 Solar Power: Rapid advances in battery technology and plummeting costs have made round-the-clock solar power viable in the world’s sunniest regions, according to a new report.
Who Knew? The great British road trip is being reimagined for the electric age, with new figures revealing that the UK now has nearly twice as many public EV chargers as petrol pumps - even if most drivers don’t realise it yet.
“Impossible” Efficiency Breakthrough: A new “spin-flip” innovation could let solar panels generate more energy than they receive.
Gas Trumped: Renewables overtook gas as the US’s leading source of electricity in March. In a first for the country, the combined might of wind, solar, hydropower and biomass produced more of the US’s electricity (35%) than gas (34%), analysis from Ember shows.
Extraordinary: China considers almost no piece of land as too difficult to construct solar arrays. A perfect example is this extraordinary image showing an entire mountain range in the Guizhou province blanketed in solar panels. China is erecting twice as much wind and solar capacity as every other country put together.
Engineered Wood Provides Solar Power Even at Night: Scientists all over the world are seeking to improve solar efficiency and to find new ways of capturing sunlight for energy. Now, specially modified wood may be a way of both harvesting sunlight and storing it.
The End of Oil? Donald Trump is a longtime climate denier who sums up his energy policy as “drill, baby, drill”. Yet he is doing more than almost anyone to speed up the global shift from fossil fuels to clean energy and electric vehicles - thanks to the debacle in the Strait of Hormuz. Ironically for Trump and his oil industry donors, this crisis may be an irreversible tipping point for clean energy. For years, fossil fuel advocates promoted oil, gas and coal as “reliable” energy. That narrative has been reversed. Fossil fuels have become expensive and unreliable, while renewables are cheap, reliable and secure.
Renewables Now Powers Half of Global Electricity Capacity: Thanks to a record increase in solar installations last year, new data from the International Renewable Energy Agency reveals.
UK's Largest: The government has approved a 800-megawatt solar project that “is expected to be the country’s largest in generation terms and to power more than 180,000 homes each year”. For the second year running, the UK sourced most of its electricity from renewables in 2025, generating 52.5 percent of the country’s electricity last year.
E-Ferries: Tourists and commuters along Norway’s stunning coastline will soon travel aboard “flying” electric ferries - quietly (and cleanly) whizzing above the water to their destinations. Boreal has ordered 20 electric hydrofoil vessels from Swedish company Candela, with deliveries next year that will become the world’s largest electric fleet.
World's Tallest Wind Turbine: Being built in Germany's former coal mining region and will be almost as tall as the Empire State building.
E-Auto Boom: Car buyers’ interest in electric cars has surged across Europe since the start of the war in Iran, as the rising cost of petrol highlights the cheaper power available from a plug. Online marketplaces in the UK, Germany, France and Spain reported huge increases in inquiries about electric vehicles since the start of the conflict. In Germany, inquiries have increased by 50 percent. UK, Spain and Germany, reported 20 percent to 30 percent increases.
Coveted Prize: Solid-state batteries have been the electric vehicle industry’s most coveted prize for the better part of a decade. The reason is simple. Today’s lithium-ion batteries use a liquid electrolyte that is flammable, heavy, and chemically unstable at extreme temperatures. Swap that liquid out for a solid material, and you get a battery that cannot catch fire, holds significantly more energy per kilogram, and degrades far more slowly over time. Better range, better safety, longer life. It sounds almost too good to be true. The catch has always been getting one off a lab bench and onto a factory floor at scale. Now, Greater Bay Technology says it will do exactly that before the end of 2026, targeting GWh-scale production and vehicle installations that would make it the world’s first mass-producible solid-state battery.
