A new analysis of government data has revealed that solar and wind accounted for nearly 98 per cent of new electricity generating capacity in the United States through the first quarter of 2025, despite efforts by the new president to unravel clean energy efforts.
The Sun Day Campaign, a non-profit research and educational organisation founded by Ken Bossong, has been fighting the good fight since 1992, and has been an invaluable tool for journalists covering clean energy in the United States.
A review conducted by the Sun Day Campaign of data recently published by the US government’s Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) demonstrates the momentum driving the clean energy industry, even in the face of extreme political adversity.
According to the government’s own data, solar and wind accounted for nearly 98 per cent of new US electrical generating capacity added in the first quarter of 2025, and solar and wind were the only sources of new capacity in March – a month that was the nineteenth in a row that saw solar stand out as the largest source of new capacity.
A total of 447MW of solar was installed in March along with the 223.9MW Shamrock Wind & Storage Project in Crockett County, Texas.
Over the first three months of 2025, a total of 7,076MW of solar and wind was installed, accounting for 97.8 per cent of new capacity.
The remainder was made up with 147MW of new natural gas capacity and 11MW from oil.
On its own, solar accounted for two-thirds of all new generating capacity placed into service in March, and 72.3 per cent of new capacity through the first quarter of the year. That makes solar the largest source of new generating capacity per month since September 2023.
This also brings the total installed capacity of solar and wind up to 22.5 per cent of the country’s total available installed utility-scale generating capacity, accounting for 10.7 per cent and 11.8 per cent respectively.
On top of that, approximately 30 per cent of US solar capacity is considered small-scale, or rooftop solar, and is not in fact reflected in FERC’s data. If small-scale solar is added to utility-scale solar and wind, that brings the total share to a quarter of America’s total.
Adding other renewable energy sources – including hydropower (7.7%), biomass (1.1%) and geothermal (0.3%) – renewables accounts for 31.5 per cent of total US utility-scale generating capacity.
FERC itself also expects a “high probability” that new solar capacity additions between April 2025 and March 2028 will total 89,461MW – by far and away the largest source of new capacity. For comparison, over that period, FERC expects 129,609MW of new capacity to be installed, meaning that there is a “high probability” that solar will account for 69 per cent. The next highest source of “high probability” generating capacity is wind energy, with 22,279MW, followed by 16,947MW worth of natural gas.
Conversely, FERC expects there to be no new nuclear capacity installed in its three-year forecast, while coal and oil are projected to contract by 24,372-MW and 2,108-MW respectively. And while new natural gas capacity is expected, that 16,947MW is offset by 15,209MW worth of retirements, resulting in an expansion of only 1,738MW.
“Thus, adjusting for the different capacity factors of gas (59.7%), wind (34.3%), and utility-scale solar (23.4%), electricity generated by the projected new solar capacity to be added in the coming three years should be at least 20 times greater than that produced by the new natural gas capacity while the electrical output by new wind capacity would be over seven times more than gas,” said Sun Day.
Finally, the Sun Day Campaign is currently predicting that all utility-scale renewables will account for 37.5 per cent of total available installed utility-scale generating capacity by April 1, 2028, “rapidly approaching” that of natural gas (40.2 per cent).
“If those trendlines continue, utility-scale renewable energy capacity should surpass that of natural gas in 2029 or sooner,” says Sun Day.
“Notwithstanding the Trump Administration’s anti-renewable energy efforts during its first 100+ days, the strong growth of solar and wind continues,” said Ken Bossong, Sun Day Campaign’s executive director.
“And FERC’s latest data and forecasts suggest this will not change in the near-term.”
