Following 35% growth, solar has passed hydro on US grid

On Tuesday, the US Energy Information Administration released full-year data on how the country generated electricity in 2025. It’s a bit of a good news/bad news situation. The bad news is that overall demand rose appreciably, and a fair chunk of that was met by additional coal use. On the good side, solar continued its run of astonishing growth, generating 35 percent more power than a year earlier and surpassing hydroelectric power for the first time.

Shifting markets

Overall, electrical consumption in the US rose by 2.8 percent, or about 121 terawatt-hours. Consumption had been largely flat for several decades, with efficiency and the decline of industry offsetting the effects of population and economic growth. There were plenty of year-to-year changes, however, driven by factors ranging from heating and cooling demand to a global pandemic. Given that history, the growth in demand in 2025 is a bit ...