US Solar Keeps Surging, Generating More Power Than Hydro In 2025 (arstechnica.com) 82
In early 2025, U.S. solar power production jumped 44% compared to the previous year, driven by end-of-year construction to capture tax incentives and long-term cost advantages. "The bad news is that, in contrast to China, solar's growth hasn't been enough to offset rising demand," notes Ars Technica. "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." From the report: 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 3 percent, and the first quarter of 2025 saw another rise, this time of nearly 5 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.
Under those circumstances, the rest of the difference will be made up for with fossil fuels. Running counter to recent trends, the use of natural gas dropped during the first three months of 2025. This means that the use of coal rose nearly as quickly as demand, up by 23 percent compared to the same time period in 2024. Despite the rise in coal use, the fraction of carbon-free electricity held steady year over year, with wind/solar/hydro/nuclear accounting for 43 percent of all power put on the US grid. That occurred despite small drops in nuclear and hydro production.
Under those circumstances, the rest of the difference will be made up for with fossil fuels. Running counter to recent trends, the use of natural gas dropped during the first three months of 2025. This means that the use of coal rose nearly as quickly as demand, up by 23 percent compared to the same time period in 2024. Despite the rise in coal use, the fraction of carbon-free electricity held steady year over year, with wind/solar/hydro/nuclear accounting for 43 percent of all power put on the US grid. That occurred despite small drops in nuclear and hydro production.
Can anyone say LLMs? (Score:2)
It's not just going from flat demand to a rising demand, it's an accelerating rise too.
Ridiculous amounts of money have poured into LLMs and the resulting server farms are stupid amounts of power needs. It makes Trump's election look sane.
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How about throwing the poor into furnaces to power AI?
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Genius!
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Poor form. They and their families might object and make trouble for you. What you do is convince them to throw *themselves* into the furnace, in fact to feel rather smug about it up until the actual burning happens.
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Are you being sold a tall tale of scarcity when statistica says: "The United States' energy production reached an estimated 104.38 quadrillion British thermal units (Btu) in 2024, while consumption amounted to approximately 93.51"?
Even if consumption is blippling slightly upward back towards 2007 levels, why aren't you also saying that production is well above consumption even without needing more coal?
Re:Can anyone say LLMs? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why are you measuring electrical energy in BTU
Whats wrong with Joules or Terawatt hours ?
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Why are you distracting from the fact that energy consumption is far exceeded by production in the US, so all this scarcity hype is but a mood affiliation?
Re:Can anyone say LLMs? (Score:5, Funny)
Those are freedom hating commie units. Even Terawatt hours, which is just a freedom hating commie unit dressed up as a blessed freedom unit.
BTU (Score:2)
Keep on using BTUs and other less frequent units of measure.
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Why are you measuring electrical energy in BTU
Whats wrong with Joules or Terawatt hours ?
Because the U.S. Energy Information Administration uses BTUs as a common baseline to compare disparate energy sources across sectors—oil, gas, coal, nuclear, renewables—many of which are measured in non-electrical units. It’s not about what’s “wrong” with joules or TWh; it’s about using a standard metric to integrate and normalize apples-to-oranges data. If you're genuinely confused, this is Energy Economics 101. If you're just nitpicking units while the rest of us
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Yes, attack the choice of metric unit instead of the substance of the argument: production > consumption, therefore reduce coal-based production.
Brilliant.
The argument doesn't depend on the unit being used. It depends on the left side being greater than the right side of the equation.
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The great thing about freedom units is there are so many to choose from. He could have gone for horsepower-days or just tons. Unit of mass you say? Also energy. And no not in the mass-energy sense, in the it's imperial so it's in the super random sense.
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Without context, that production figure doesn't mean much. How much of that energy lost was due to transmission or grid overload scenarios where power had to be burned off with resistive heaters? You're also ignoring the baseline costs associated with producing that excess energy. There's still scarcity involved even if someone overprovisioned and then failed to transmit to a grid that had demand in a timely fashion.
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Without context, that production figure doesn't mean much. How much of that energy lost was due to transmission or grid overload scenarios where power had to be burned off with resistive heaters? You're also ignoring the baseline costs associated with producing that excess energy. There's still scarcity involved even if someone overprovisioned and then failed to transmit to a grid that had demand in a timely fashion.
Agreed. Figuring out the power grid is pretty complex. In my area in PA, we've found that rather than granting right of ways, eminent domain and easement claims, then running new HV lines and towers when the grid reaches the end of it's useable length, we're placing solar arrays at the last substation locations, and carrying on normally, and hella cheaper. It's incremental. Battery storage is being installed now.
What surprises me is that this isn't noted more in the press.
Scarcity - now there's an iss
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Your insight is exactly what the headline narratives miss, and frankly what a lot of policy commentary still hasn’t caught up to. This isn’t just “energy transition” in the abstract—it’s engineering reality meeting political practicality. Props to you for laying it out so clearly.
In my area in PA, we've found that rather than granting right of ways, eminent domain and easement claims, then running new HV lines and towers when the grid reaches the end of its useable length...
That’s the part people don’t appreciate unless they’ve been in a utility planning room. Expanding the grid the old-fashioned way means lawsuits, public hearings, land use fights
Subtraction problem [Re:Can anyone say LLMs?] (Score:2)
Without context, that production figure doesn't mean much. How much of that energy lost was due to transmission or grid overload scenarios where power had to be burned off with resistive heaters?
Since production was 104.38 quadrillion BTU and consumption was 93.51, the answer is 10.87 BTU, or about ten percent.
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Without context, that production figure doesn't mean much. How much of that energy lost was due to transmission or grid overload scenarios where power had to be burned off with resistive heaters?
Since production was 104.38 quadrillion BTU and consumption was 93.51, the answer is 10.87 BTU, or about ten percent.
Burning off power is especially important for legacy power turbine generation. If the load drops for typical reasons like the storms that tried to destroy PA this spring (we were a week without mains power and over a week without my network feed) We have to sink that power pronto to avoid turbine overspin. That has to be kinda exciting.
Solar power is much less dramatic when that happens.
But Solar and wind are running quietly in the background, and with each year that passes takes over more and more of
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Natural gas power plants are quickest to install, but gas is expensive.
Solar is to save on gas, while trying to milk subsidies and trying to keep emission promises.
Re: Can anyone say LLMs? (Score:2)
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I think this is true only if you are comparing the LCOE of natural gas to solar *with storage* in the US. A plain solar farm without storage is going to be cheaper. We really should look at both with and without storage, because they're both valid comparisons for different purposes, although PV + storage is probably the best for an apples-to-apples comparison.
The cost of solar has come down year after year for the last thirty years, to the point that *internationally*, at least, the LCOE for solar PV plus
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In the US, gas is cheaper than solar to operate on a MWh basis. Especially if you don't include the subsidies.
And if you don’t count the sun, night is cheaper than day. Come on. Excluding subsidies is convenient if you're trying to win an argument in 2004, but in 2025, solar + storage is already beating gas on levelized cost in most U.S. regions—even with the tax breaks winding down. That’s not activist spin; that’s Lazard, BloombergNEF, and EIA data.
Natural gas is stupid cheap, and cheaper than almost anywhere else on the planet.
Until it’s not. Gas prices swing wildly with demand surges, pipeline bottlenecks, extreme weather, and LNG market turbulence. Solar doesn
Re: Can anyone say LLMs? (Score:2)
Natural gas, especially in the east and central US, is absurdly cheap much of the time. It is weather dependent due to heating demand and pipeline constraints, but it's not at all uncommon to see gas prices dip below $2 per mmbtu. At those prices natural gas power generation with a combined cycle unit, even with all construction costs, is wildly cheaper than renewables with batteries, and usually cheaper than straight variable renewables with no batteries. Much less efficient peaking units are still in the
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Even purely by cost and even in the US, solar is still getting close to being cheaper than running the generator (in goldilock locations, low land price, minimum land prep etc). Combined with emission concerns it's an easy choice.
They won't make a song and dance about it any more for the current US presidency, but they are likely continuing trying to limit emissions for when he exits and they go back to talking about it.
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Natural gas, especially in the east and central US, is absurdly cheap much of the time.
Sure—if you cherry-pick the right shoulder months and ignore volatility, delivery constraints, and the fact that utilities don’t plan multi-billion-dollar infrastructure around “much of the time.”
It's not at all uncommon to see gas prices dip below $2 per mmbtu.
And it's not at all uncommon to see them spike above $8. Prices under $2 are usually short-lived artifacts of overproduction and inadequate pipeline capacity, not stable baselines. You wouldn’t build a power portfolio assuming gas will always behave like it's on clearance.
At those prices natural gas power generation... is wildly cheaper than renewables with batteries...
At those pric
Re:Can anyone say LLMs? (Score:5, Informative)
Natural gas power plants are quickest to install, but gas is expensive.
A solid start. Congrats on passing Energy Infrastructure 101. Yes, gas is expensive, volatile, and geopolitically stupid to rely on long-term. That’s why utilities don’t want to keep gambling on it. Glad you’ve caught up to 2016.
Solar is to save on gas...
Correct again, although I notice you say it like that’s a bad thing. “Saving on gas” isn’t some dirty trick—it’s literally the goal. Sunlight doesn’t have a spot price. It doesn’t require drilling, pipelines, or a lobbyist. It just shows up every morning and doesn’t invoice you.
...while trying to milk subsidies...
Ah, there it is. The subsidy boogeyman. Shall we tally fossil fuel subsidies while we’re at it? Or does that violate the “only renewables get blamed for policy” rulebook? Spoiler: oil and gas get more.
...and trying to keep emission promises.
You say that like keeping promises is for suckers. Some of us think honoring international agreements, reducing climate risk, and not cooking the next generation is worth doing even if ExxonMobil cries about it.
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"this thing I hate is taxed to hell and back, but it still exists so it's not taxed enough, and that counts as a subsidy" isn't a subsidy.
You're right—that isn't a subsidy. It's also not what anyone here said.
A subsidy is preferential financial treatment—full stop. That includes direct payments, tax breaks, below-market leasing, liability shields, and other regulatory carveouts that reduce operating costs. Fossil fuels receive all of the above. Every credible institution from the IMF to the IEA to the U.S. Treasury has documented billions annually in fossil fuel subsidies, both direct and indirect.
Pretending that subsidies only co
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You should let Elon Musk know that, since he has a couple data centers in Memphis famously burning shedloads of natgas to power them [selc.org], and he also owns a solar energy company [tesla.com] that I'm betting he could get a pretty good price from.
I'm sure he would really appreciate someone letting him know that he's spending money he doesn't have to, and that his own company (Tesla) could supply a better source.
Or, just maybe, they know something that you haven't thought of.
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Don't data centers have 24 hour round the clock power requirements?
Yes, and so do hospitals, airports, and your refrigerator. Welcome to the concept of baseload power—try not to hurt yourself bumping into it on the way to a more useful comment.
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Don't data centers have 24 hour round the clock power requirements?
Good question. I imagine training is 24/7. However, responding to queries is obviously dependent on the rate of incoming queries. Doing a quick google search shows that 60-90% of AI data center load is inference. So, that means that total AI data center power usage is variable during the day and drops off a lot when people are sleeping.
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They will still fluctuate based on demand and usage.
Your 1000W power supply in your PC doesn't pull 1000W for every second of it's operation. That's merely it's capacity ceiling for whatever demand is put on it by the hardware inside the case.
Servers are no different - if they aren't doing much, they draw less power (if sanely configured).
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Not necessarily. Fixed costs are still high enough to keep energy prices within an order of magnitude of what you pay for residential power.
Re: Can anyone say LLMs? (Score:1)
Did you just say private utilities make ten times what it costs them to produce electricity?
Trade deficits (Score:3)
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Coming to an end (Score:5, Informative)
With the GOP budget bill canceling solar tax credits, the rise in solar production is about to come to a screeching halt.
Re:Coming to an end (Score:5, Funny)
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Applause.
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I think it's an amazingly good adlib.
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You are fucking good at that. I'd vote for you!
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They built a secret artificial sun in Vegas. I’ve seen it myself, it's huge, and they hid it behind the Venetian.
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Sunlight causes cancer.
I see potential in this. Maybe we can convince the medical industrial complex to promote solar as it will give them a needed boost in revenue.
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Maybe, maybe not. If solar producers are as cost-competitive as they claim (and if sodium batteries or something better proliferates), they shouldn't have any problem continuing some momentum.
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The current regime doesn't like solar. If it is still cheaper to install, then they'll tax it as a percentage of kWh produced thorough the budget reconciliation process.
Re:Coming to an end (Score:5, Interesting)
It may not though. Solar has a lot of advantages, one of them is the idiot-proof-ness, and ease of maintenance. Almost no moving parts except for cooling fans, and maybe axis motors. Because of this, if a field has solar panels slung out there, the only real hazard is hail, maybe dusting the panels off every so often.
Solar has fallen below nuclear in deaths per TWh, especially with how integrated charge controllers have become. Even without grants, solar has its uses, even if it is just used to slightly mitigate the energy use of A/C in southern US states.
Solar is also getting better by increments. Bi-facial panels are useful because one can put those on racks, and catch reflected sunlight from underneath. Panels with built in water cooling are being developed, and advances in MPPT controllers have been slowly but surely coming. I've seen solar setups that have a mechanism that blows air in the dead space between the panels and the roof they are mounted on, helping cooling and efficiency. It isn't about major improvements, but getting the kinks out of the system which have moved forward, helping with ease of installation and handling voltages. Even panels that have built in MPPT boards/micro-inverters so that shade covering one part won't cause the entire panel to lose most of its energy generation.
Energy has to come from somewhere, and it is hard to beat solar's ease of deployment and use.
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Solar is also getting better by increments.
So much this. There is perhaps a rather big difference between putting up more solar and batteries than building a new Nuclear power station.
Up front Government money, inevitable cost overruns, and solar farms can even insure themselves. I've seen solar farm expansion here, done quietly and successfully, and on time and budget.
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and solar farms can even insure themselves
Unfortunately, that's not the show stopper it should be, while there's kickbacks to be had from the industry to force The People to underwrite the risk.
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China continues building more solar, wind and nuclear: That means; better infrastructure, more factories and much, much cheaper products. Even if the US slave labour mandate (from the current bill in Congress) makes US wages equal to China: The USA will soon be too expensive, all over again. The result will be, the rest of the world choosing climate-friendly China over petro-dollar-friendly USA. Meantime, the USA loses its workforce to increased pollution, workplace accidents, epidemics and infection,
Maybe, but it's hard to stop (Score:2)
I mean in Germany those tax credits are now only at around 20%, essentially you don't have to pay VAT... which is just relevant for private installations. This is within the margin of error of your economic calculations. The times when you could actually sell solar power for 20 cents per kWh or more are long gone.
At least in Germany, solar is currently the most economic way to produce power, even with storage factored in. Of course in the US there are different environments which may make nuclear a semi-fea
Dream on, troll. (was: Re:Coming to an end) (Score:2)
With the GOP budget bill canceling solar tax credits, the rise in solar production is about to come to a screeching halt.
That’s a bold claim—boldly wrong, and proudly ignorant of the article you didn’t read. Solar isn’t surging because of tax credits; it’s surging because it won the economics war. Even without subsidies, solar is already cheaper than gas or coal in most of the country, which is why it keeps growing despite political sabotage attempts. The tax credit rollback won’t affect the gigawatts of capacity already in the pipeline, and even if it did, any price bump from lost incentiv
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If the price of *anything* increases 30% overnight, the growth in sales will slow.
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sales growth slowing != "solar production [coming] to a screeching halt."
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Nobody said production is coming to a halt. I think you've mis-parsed my comment. Production growth comes from new installations. That growth will slow, obviously, if the price increases by 30%.
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With the GOP budget bill canceling solar tax credits, the rise in solar production is about to come to a screeching halt.
That’s a bold claim—boldly wrong, and proudly ignorant of the article you didn’t read. Solar isn’t surging because of tax credits; it’s surging because it won the economics war.
No, the proposed earlier sunsetting of subsidies won't completely kill new solar installations. However, it's not reasonable that the end of a 30% credit will not significantly affect future installations, regardless of the intrinsic cost for solar. For both residential and commercial installations, the payback period significantly changes without the credit.
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No, the proposed earlier sunsetting of subsidies won't completely kill new solar installations...
Agreed, I did claim the tax rebates for installing my rooftop solar, garage battery system and high UV reflective windows but the tax rebates were never a consideration when deciding to install any of them. I had the available savings to pay cash, wanted to stop paying up to an unknown few hundred dollars per-month for grid power, i.e. I simply re-position existing savings into my property, raising it's resale value and it permits me to deposit more to savings per-month thereafter from reduced power bills.
Held steady? (Score:2)
Despite the rise in coal use, the fraction of carbon-free electricity held steady year over year, with wind/solar/hydro/nuclear accounting for 43 percent of all power put on the US grid. That occurred despite small drops in nuclear and hydro production.
So, solar has replaced some nuclear and hydro (as we neglected those?), while the fossil fuel percentage held steady? Is that what this is saying?
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No.
Nuclear and hydro remained constant because we haven't opened any new nuclear or hydro of significance, but have removed some hydro for revitalization of salmon runs (Klamath River in southern Oregon / northern California, for example).
When one slice of the pie gets bigger, the other slices will by definition get smaller. This isn't hard to understand.
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When one slice of the pie gets bigger, the other slices will by definition get smaller. This isn't hard to understand.
No, but "renewables just got shuffled around and didn't increase" somehow didn't get clearly stated ...
THE SUMMARY IS A LIE (Score:2)
The accompanying graph shows Hydro at 6% and Solar at 5%.
THE SUMMARY IS not A LIE (Score:2)
The accompanying graph shows Hydro at 6% and Solar at 5%.
The other graph shows Solar higher, but also mentions Solar outproduced hydro, but a significant amount of that production never made it onto the grid.
In terms of power on the grid, there was less solar than hydro. But the Energy Information Agency also estimates the production from small-scale solar, like the kind you'd find on people's roofs. Some of this never enters the grid and instead simply offsets demand locally (in that it gets used by the house that sits beneath the panels). If you combine the TW-hr produced by small- and grid-scale solar, however, they surpass the production from hydropower by a significant margin.
TL;DR
A lot of solar is produced and used locally.
night (Score:2)
The nighttime is the right time. Hydro generates power at night.
More Power (Score:2)
But for how many minutes? How much energy?