99% of New US Energy Capacity Will Be Green in 2026
7 69This year in America, renewables and battery storage "will account for 99.2% of net new capacity — and even higher if small-scale solar were included," reports Electrek, citing EIA data reviewed by the SUN DAY Campaign: EIA's latest monthly "Electric Power Monthly" report (with data through November 30, 2025), once again confirms that solar is the fastest-growing among the major sources of US electricity... [U]tility-scale solar thermal and photovoltaic expanded by 34.5% while that from small-scale systems rose by 11.3% during the first 11 months of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024. The combination of utility-scale and small-scale solar increased by 28.1% and produced a bit under 9.0% (utility-scale: 6.74%; small-scale: 2.13%) of total US electrical generation for January to November, up from 7.1% a year earlier.
Wind turbines across the US produced 10.1% of US electricity in the first 11 months of 2025 — an increase of 1.2% compared to the same period in 2024. In November alone, wind-generated electricity was 2.0% greater than a year earlier... The mix of all renewables (wind, solar, hydropower, biomass, and geothermal) produced 8.7% more electricity in January-November than a year earlier and accounted for 25.7% of total US electricity production, up from 24.3% 12 months earlier. Renewables' share of electrical generation is now second to only that of natural gas, whose electrical output actually dropped by 3.7% during the first 11 months of 2025...
Since January 1 to November 30, roughly the beginning of the Trump administration, renewable energy capacity, including battery storage, small-scale solar, hydropower, geothermal, and biomass, ballooned by 45,198.1 MW, while all fossil fuels and nuclear power combined declined by 519.2 MW...
[In 2026] natural gas capacity will increase by only 3,960.7 MW, which will be almost completely offset by a decrease of 3,387.0 MW in coal capacity.
7 comments
Re:Since when are renewables green?? (Score: 5, Informative)
by ZombieCatInABox ( 5665338 ) on Sunday February 01, 2026 @09:12AM (#65962348)
Alec of Technology Connections recently published an excellent video (probably his best video yet) about exactly this subject:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Basically, he completely obliterates the misinformation and lies continuously spread, either by ignorance or malice, by people like you. And he has the numbers to prove it. It's rather long, but very indepth and frankly quite easy to watch. Of course, I know full well that you won't watch it, because it contradicts your beliefs, and we can't have that now, can we ? But I hope it will be useful and interesting to other people here, and to those, liberals and conservatives, who are actually interested in reality.
In the last half of his video, he goes into a very well written and extremely heartfelt rant about the state of things in the U.S. right now. No doubt it will completely infuriate your average Trump cult member, but it will profoundly touch every human being that actually has a heart. Well worth a listen. If you can, forward this to every person you know. Videos like this just might be what's needed for your country to avoid devolving into another civil war.
Re:Since when are renewables green?? (Score: 5, Interesting)
by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Sunday February 01, 2026 @09:29AM (#65962372)
The only area I disagree with him is on home solar and battery storage. I get what he is saying that it makes more sense to pay commercial suppliers to do it on a massive scale, but there are advantages to having your own at home too. Of course, up front cost is the biggest barrier for house owners, and people renting or living in an apartment often can't install more than balcony solar.
Aside from the benefits to the owner, it will keep the large scale generators a bit more honest in future. In the past the only way to make your own electricity was a generator, which was expensive to run compared to just buying electricity from the grid. Now those grid suppliers are in competition with home solar and battery storage, and competition is good.
Re:Since when are renewables green?? (Score: 5, Insightful)
by SoonerC ( 6423252 ) on Sunday February 01, 2026 @10:00AM (#65962428)
The only area I disagree with him is on home solar and battery storage. I get what he is saying that it makes more sense to pay commercial suppliers to do it on a massive scale, but there are advantages to having your own at home too.
I'd rather spend $20k on a solar + battery setup for backup power than $10k on a generator because I can actually use solar every day to dramatically decrease my electric bill.
different scales of waste and pollution (Score: 5, Insightful)
by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Sunday February 01, 2026 @09:14AM (#65962350)
Waste is fine, you can store, process, or convert it. Pumping carbon from under ground to send into the atmosphere with no intention of pumping it back. And the massive chemical industry around processing that creates waste and serious environmental disaster from time to time.
Look, nobody cares if your cargo ship hauling turbine blades tips into the ocean. Sure, there will be micro plastics and localized clutter or even toxic leeching. But it's a far more serious problem when it's a tanker full of crude. And those tankers transport many times more frequently than windmill parts and solar panels.
Re:Since when are renewables green?? (Score: 5, Informative)
by Anonymous Coward ( None ) on Sunday February 01, 2026 @09:16AM (#65962352)
The claim that renewables like solar and wind are "far from being green" due to short lifespans, waste generation, and production-related devastation and pollution is a common criticism, but it doesn't hold up when examining the full lifecycle impacts compared to alternatives like fossil fuels.
Solar panels typically last **25-35 years** (with many manufacturers warranting 25+ years and real-world data showing even longer operational life in many cases). Wind turbines generally last around 20-30 years. While not eternal, this is comparable to or longer than many other infrastructure components, and during operation, they produce near-zero emissions.
Production does involve mining (e.g., silicon, silver, copper for solar; steel, concrete, and sometimes rare earths for wind magnets) and manufacturing, which can cause habitat disruption, water use, pollution from chemicals, and energy-intensive processes. For solar, this includes quartz mining and purification (often in energy-heavy facilities), plus hazardous materials like hydrofluoric acid or trace toxics (cadmium in some thin-film types). For wind, rare earth mining (e.g., neodymium) has raised concerns about radioactive waste, heavy metals, and water contamination in extraction regions.
End-of-life waste is a valid issue: Projections estimate millions of tons of solar panel waste by 2050 globally (e.g., up to 78 million tons cumulatively), with some panels containing lead or cadmium that require careful handling to avoid soil/water contamination if landfilled. Recycling rates are improving but not yet universal or cheap everywhere.
However, these downsides are **substantially outweighed** by the benefits when viewed through lifecycle assessments (cradle-to-grave analyses from mining to decommissioning):
Mining for renewables is more "up-front" and one-time per installation, while fossil fuels involve perpetual extraction and burning. Per unit of energy produced over time, renewables require significantly less mining overall than coal or gas when factoring in fuel needs.
Improvements are ongoing: better recycling (recovering silver, silicon, glass), cleaner manufacturing (some factories now run on renewables), designs avoiding rare earths in some wind turbines, and regulations for responsible sourcing/mining.
Renewables aren't perfect or impact-free—no energy source is—but calling them "as green as the mines they require" overlooks that fossil fuel reliance means **far more mining, pollution, and waste** overall, plus direct emissions driving climate change. The data shows renewables deliver a massive net environmental benefit for decarbonization.
Re: Since when is your argument green? (Score: 5, Interesting)
by Pinky's Brain ( 1158667 ) on Sunday February 01, 2026 @12:41PM (#65962630)
Before the oil glut, a lot of chemistry was lignin based. It can be again.
Lignin based epoxy, plant based carbon fibre. Then at the end chop it up and incinerate it, still net zero.
It's to cash in on short term price spikes. (Score: 5, Interesting)
by hey! ( 33014 ) on Sunday February 01, 2026 @12:40PM (#65962628)
I think it plausible that 99% of new energy this year come from renewable sources because many of those sources come from renewable types with relatively short construction times.
Up until recently, the US adds about 50 GW of capaicty per year. There's a huge uptick in generation capacity because of energy demands from data centers, so recently it's more like 65 GW/year. The challenge is you can't exploit *this year's* high market prices by starting a nuclear power plant that won't come on line for a decade. Even a combined cycle natural gas plant is going to take five years. But you can have a wind farm up and running in months.
It's not the renewability *per se* that's driving this; it's profiting from the high prices before the AI bubble bursts. Nobody is rushing to bring new hydropower or geothermal plants online, and they're just as renewable as wind or solar.
This move to renewables is not about changing the world. it's about short term financial optimization. But these short term, local optimizations *will* change the world, and planning to handle the transformations driven by short-term market forces is going to take coordinated, long term national action. At present there are regional mandates that will stabilize the local grid against variations in electricity supply. But carving up the nation into small regional markets means higher prices and economic inefficiencies where electricity is transfered from high price areas to stabilize low price areas. Market economics don't work if there are non-market forces (stability) that trump profitability.