US solar keeps surging, generating more power than hydro in 2025

In the US, many newly constructed generating facilities are brought online at the end of the year to qualify for tax incentives. Since much of the US’s new generating capacity is solar power, that has led to a boom in solar production to start the year in recent years. With the first three months of data in for 2025, it’s clear this year is no exception: Solar power is up a staggering 44 percent compared to the prior year.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that, in contrast to China, solar’s growth hasn’t been enough to offset rising demand. Instead, the US also saw significant growth in coal use, which rose by 23 percent compared to the year prior, after years of steady decline.

Short-term fluctuations in demand are normal, generally driven by weather-induced demand for heating or cooling. Despite those changes, demand for electricity in the US has been largely flat for over a decade, largely thanks to gains in efficiency. But 2024 saw demand go up by nearly three percent, and the first quarter of 2025 saw another rise, this time of nearly five percent. It’s a bit too early to say that we’re seeing a shift to a period of rising demand, but one has been predicted for some time due to rising data center use and the increased electrification of transportation and appliances.

Ideally, we’d be in a place where the increased demand is offset by growth in non-polluting sources of power like wind and solar. Unfortunately, we’re short of that at the moment. The first three months of 2025 saw production from wind increase by 12 percent while production from solar grew by 44 percent, compared to the same quarter last year. In absolute terms, wind and solar combined to produce an additional 28 Terawatt-hours in 2025 compared to the same time the year before. Unfortunately, demand rose by nearly 50 TW-hr over the same period.