The renewable energy arm of India’s Adani Group has taken the top place in the latest ranking of the global Energy Intelligence Top 100 Green Utilities, which demonstrates the accelerating and increasingly market-driven shift to low-carbon power generation.
“We have now the policy architecture and economics that work, so consequently the whole energy transition is now an economic push, ” Adani Group CFO Jugeshinder (‘Robbie’) Singh told Energy Intelligence in an exclusive interview published today. “There is an economic rationale that exists within the supply of green electrons. It will happen.”
This ranking of the world’s top green power generators is part of Energy Intelligence’s Low-Carbon Energy service and is based on companies’ renewable energy portfolios and their greenhouse gas emissions. Top 100 Green Utilities from Energy Intelligence provides data and rankings for 100 leading power generators, accounting for over 35% of the world’s capacity.
Key findings include:
- Adani Green Energy moved up from third place to first while displacing 2024 winner China National Nuclear Corp., now ranked No. 4.
- Adani’s renewables company is one of two Indian firms in the top 10 and one of six in the top 100, up from only one Indian company in the original 2011 ranking.
- The ranking’s top 10 confirms a marked switch in the global energy transition to Asia: 50% of the companies are from Asia, the two Indian companies, plus three Chinese companies. European firms make up the rest of the top 10.
- CO2 emissions from generators in the ranking fell by 6% last year, less than the 9% drop in 2023 but more than during the previous decade, when declines typically ran at 3%-4% per year.
- Since the first 2011 ranking, the top 100 companies’ non-hydro renewables have soared to 1,079 GW, or 29% of total capacity, up from 116 GW, or 4% originally.
“As the world moves into the Age of Electricity, power companies are increasingly investing in new renewable capacity, primarily wind and solar, as the lowest cost new generation option,” Said James Cockayne, managing editor of Energy Intelligence. “This is particularly true in Asia, which is taking the reins of the global energy transition. This can be seen in the shifting composition of the companies in the world’s Top 100 Green Utilities.”
Energy Intelligence selected 100 companies from among the largest power generators from around the world. The ranking evaluated their “greenness” according to carbon dioxide emissions per megawatt hour and renewable energy capacity. Rather than approaching the subject by country or region, the report compares individual companies from both industrialized and emerging markets.
An accompanying analysis draws out key trends and conclusions.
