Soaring solar and a surge in hydro push more coal off the US grid

The first data from 2026 seem to indicate that last year was an oddity.

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[dtich]

Good.

 

[AliSard]

This is good news, but it breaks my hearts (both the environmentalist and the economist) that we deliberately kneecapped ourselves in this sector when we had actually been making progress.

It really is tragic.

 

[JohnDeL]

This is a great example of the "invisible hand" at work. Since solar and wind are so much less expensive than natural gas or coal, renewable are slowly taking over from fossil fuels. The only thing slowing down the switch right now is the tendency of Trump and his cronies to put their collective thumb on the scales.

As for hydro, I expect that will start to reduce over the next few years as the effects of the current drought start to take hold.

 

[ReadandShare]

I would love to see the day when renewables become so cheap and efficient - and local energy storage scaled up massively and cheaply too - that we can get close to 'zero' carbon. And desalinating sea water becomes economical too. That will take away a lot of the economic friction vexxing humanity today.

 

[b1LL_]

Consumer anecdote:

I bought an 11.5 kW solar system and a Franklin battery for my home this spring despite the end of the subsidies. They're building data centers around me and I know where my family and neighbors stand on the priority list for our energy provider...the fucking bottom. I have friends who are doing the same for similar reasons.

Given the rate of $/kWh increases here over the past few years, and our energy provider's stranglehold on the state utility commission, I expect my setup to pay for itself faster than projected. And even if it doesn't the peace of mind for hurricane and ice-storm related power disruptions was worth it for us.

ETA: if you're in the US and shopping for solar don't look at the subsidies Australia currently offers if you value low blood pressure. My system would have cost ~70-80% less there.

 

[Les Pane]

The inexorable march, temporarily stunted, by the Orange Menace, in a way that did not stop it, but only handicapped US competitiveness in the market.

 

[SomewhereAroundBarstow]

I was casually pricing hardware for a grid-tie system at my new house that would average out to covering a year's worth of electricity and it was less than half the cost of the hardware we installed at my old house five years ago, not including the subsidies in place then. The end of the subsidies isn't going to matter much at all very soon.

 

[NetMage]

the fact that coal is dropping would seemingly support the view that the orders are unnecessary.

That seems contradictory- did you mean the lawsuit is unnecessary since the orders are ineffective?

 

[Stuart Frasier]

I would love to see the day when renewables become so cheap and efficient - and local energy storage scaled up massively and cheaply too - that we can get close to 'zero' carbon. And desalinating sea water becomes economical too. That will take away a lot of the economic friction vexxing humanity today.

Getting off of fossil fuels cuts the power of so many bad actor states - Saudi, Russia, Texas, etc. it’s why the right is so desperate to cling to them.

 

[Dr. Jay]

That seems contradictory- did you mean the lawsuit is unnecessary since the orders are ineffective?

No, the orders are made under the guise of an energy emergency - made under a law that allows these sort of directives if the grid is going to be short on power. But clearly it's not so short on power that the coal plants are necessary.

 

[Tofystedeth]

That seems contradictory- did you mean the lawsuit is unnecessary since the orders are ineffective?

The order are emergency orders. If they aren't needed despite the supposed "emergency" because of renewables growth, the orders are unnecessary.

Edit: more like Dr. Ninja

 

[1Zach1]

I would love to see the day when renewables become so cheap and efficient - and local energy storage scaled up massively and cheaply too - that we can get close to 'zero' carbon. And desalinating sea water becomes economical too. That will take away a lot of the economic friction vexxing humanity today.

Aren't we already in the days of renewables being cheap and efficient? And grid storage projects are being heavily pushed across the country, with battery prices continuing to fall year over year.

 

[Tactical Finesse]

This is a great example of the "invisible hand" at work. Since solar and wind are so much less expensive than natural gas or coal, renewable are slowly taking over from fossil fuels. The only thing slowing down the switch right now is the tendency of Trump and his cronies to put their collective thumb on the scales.

As for hydro, I expect that will start to reduce over the next few years as the effects of the current drought start to take hold.

Drought combined with the fact that basically all of America's hydro dams were thrown up within a 30 year time span...and all of them are reaching EOL, as structures, at the same time consequently--and there's no money to systemically rehabilitate or replace the thousand or so presently critical-rated structures now--never mind the thousands of others soon to be in the same status.

Nothing lasts forever, and dam failures will start to become more common, as a lot of those structures were privatized and handed off to groups that just defer maintenance to infinity. And even if they were kept up--man-made rock, AKA concrete, doesn't last forever. Even the genuine article doesn't.

 

[paulfdietz]

I was casually pricing hardware for a grid-tie system at my new house that would average out to covering a year's worth of electricity and it was less than half the cost of the hardware we installed at my old house five years ago, not including the subsidies in place then. The end of the subsidies isn't going to matter much at all very soon.

Once the avalanche has started, the orange pebble doesn't get a vote.

 

[Tactical Finesse]

Getting off of fossil fuels cuts the power of so many bad actor states - Saudi, Russia, Texas, etc. it’s why the right is so desperate to cling to them.

Also states like Wyoming that relies for a good chunk of its annual budget from natural resource extraction excise taxes. Same for Alaska. Which is how those states don't have income tax.

I was on a bike tour years ago and a state official from Nebraska was asking some people how they could replicate Wyoming's lack of income tax--I told him he should just magic a crapload of coal into the ground. He had no idea about how Wyoming was basically like Russia/Venezuela except on coal.

 

[odikweos]

It's disappointing we're lagging the world so hard, but the good news is investment is still heavy, and things almost have to get better in 2029.

 

[WilDeliver]

Installed solar array 5 years ago, no electric bill 8 months of the year, entirely paid off at this point and now a revenue source. Heat pump 2023, still no electric bill in the AC months.

 

[poke 532810]

Drought combined with the fact that basically all of America's hydro dams were thrown up within a 30 year time span...and all of them are reaching EOL, as structures, at the same time consequently--and there's no money to systemically rehabilitate or replace the thousand or so presently critical-rated structures now--never mind the thousands of others soon to be in the same status.

Nothing lasts forever, and dam failures will start to become more common, as a lot of those structures were privatized and handed off to groups that just defer maintenance to infinity. And even if they were kept up--man-made rock, AKA concrete, doesn't last forever. Even the genuine article doesn't.

Practical Engineering made a video about this - All Dams Are Temporary. One issue with dams is that they silt in over time and it isn’t feasible to remove all that silt. They’re also generally terrible for the environment. The sooner we can shift away from fossil fuels and dams, the better.

 

[fellow_traveler]

Here in California, a Senate committee unanimously approved a bill authorizing balcony solar, so we might get it in the near future. The proposed max limit is 1200w. One 400w panel could generate 14% of a typical apartment's needs, so x3 would be 42%; increasing the limit to 1600w would push that over 50% but baby steps for now, I guess.
Edison keeps reminding me I use half again as much electricity as my neighbors so anything to cut my bill would be welcome.

 

[blookoolaid]

Also states like Wyoming that relies for a good chunk of its annual budget from natural resource extraction excise taxes. Same for Alaska. Which is how those states don't have income tax.

I was on a bike tour years ago and a state official from Nebraska was asking some people how they could replicate Wyoming's lack of income tax--I told him he should just magic a crapload of coal into the ground. He had no idea about how Wyoming was basically like Russia/Venezuela except on coal.

Note that lack of income tax doesnt necessarily imply an extractive economy. Washington, New Hampshire, and Tennessee dont have income tax either and I wouldn't classify any of them as deriving a lot of income from natural resource extraction.

 

[SomewhereAroundBarstow]

Note that lack of income tax doesnt necessarily imply an extractive economy. Washington, New Hampshire, and Tennessee dont have income tax either and I wouldn't classify any of them as deriving a lot of income from natural resource extraction.

I would agree, although the historic reason Washington doesn't have an income tax is because when they were drafting the state constitution they thought timber was an inexhaustible resource that would fund everything forever. Turns out that isn't true, but now we have an entrenched population of people who are incapable of doing the math to understand just how badly they are getting fucked by sales taxes instead of an income tax.

 

[Veritas super omens]

My expectations were right save a couple of major missed targets. Wind increase was what I would have expected for hydro and the increase in hydro was what I would have expected for wind.

 

[Veritas super omens]

I would agree, although the historic reason Washington doesn't have an income tax is because when they were drafting the state constitution they thought timber was an inexhaustible resource that would fund everything forever. Turns out that isn't true, but now we have an entrenched population of people who are incapable of doing the math to understand just how badly they are getting fucked by sales taxes instead of an income tax.

Sales tax are regressive and income tax can be set up as progressive. Oregon has no sales tax.

 

[Veritas super omens]

Practical Engineering made a video about this - All Dams Are Temporary. One issue with dams is that they silt in over time and it isn’t feasible to remove all that silt. They’re also generally terrible for the environment. The sooner we can shift away from fossil fuels and dams, the better.

All of everything is temporary...except entropy. Entropy is forever.

 

[Randomizer]

Does this report show power self-generated onsite? We're seeing data centers installing their own gas-powered generators onsite. A local space-related manufacturing facility suddenly installed about a dozen of the larger 500KW+ generators onsite and have been running them 24/7 for several months now - I don't know if they are cryptomining or running AI onsite or what they could possibly be doing to pull that much power that could be space-related.

 

[numerobis]

Also states like Wyoming that relies for a good chunk of its annual budget from natural resource extraction excise taxes. Same for Alaska. Which is how those states don't have income tax.

I was on a bike tour years ago and a state official from Nebraska was asking some people how they could replicate Wyoming's lack of income tax--I told him he should just magic a crapload of coal into the ground. He had no idea about how Wyoming was basically like Russia/Venezuela except on coal.

It’s that quarterly target nonsense that keeps Nebraska down — if only it had invested in vast anoxic swamps 60 million years ago! But no, it went for the short-term win of shallow seas full of fish instead, and just got shale.

 

[numerobis]

No, the orders are made under the guise of an energy emergency - made under a law that allows these sort of directives if the grid is going to be short on power. But clearly it's not so short on power that the coal plants are necessary.

The emergency is still bogus, the utilities and regulators already did the math and are closing coal plants that aren’t needed. That said, your counter argument just doesn’t work: if there really were an emergency of availability of power, a quarter with higher than usual stream flows wouldn’t contradict it.

 

[Tactical Finesse]

Practical Engineering made a video about this - All Dams Are Temporary. One issue with dams is that they silt in over time and it isn’t feasible to remove all that silt. They’re also generally terrible for the environment. The sooner we can shift away from fossil fuels and dams, the better.

I remember that vid! Dams get tricky because they exist for different reasons. Here in Nebraska we (used to?) have one of the strongest dams (in terms of the concrete) the Corps of Engineers measured. Which kind of needs to exist. Even though it too is a 50s era dam. And will also need replaced--and there's no capital to do it.

The TLDR of the story:
Native Americans were here first, of course. And they learned the hydrology and geology 1st person. Well the White Man comes along, and finds what they would call the Republican River Valley. Which has great farm land. White Man offers a Deal to the natives for the Republican River land. The Natives look at the White Man like they are crazy and tried to warn them--but they didn't listen.

And so the Valley was settled and a town called Republican City was made and settled, on the river bank, as a point of commerce in the area.

The punch line to this story and why it comes up in this topic of dams?

The Natives knew, and warned the White Man...that most of the time the Republican River was a trickle barely enough to wet your toes. Which if you think about geology and hydrology and back to what I just said about there being great farm land there should set off some alarm bells....well the other minority of the time--roughly every 10 years or so, the Republican River went from being a trickle to a miles-wide rampaging flood.

Republican City was razed by the River I think half a dozen times--before the Army Corps came in to dam the river to control it. The entire Old Town is now below the waterline, and the entire city was moved. The locals in Alma had a block-party on the ruins of Old Town about a decade ago during a record drought when the Old Town resurfaced.

 

[ShortOrder]

"the Persian Gulf conflict drives global natural gas prices higher"
Which unintuitively may lower US natural gas prices. A lot of natural gas is coproduced with oil and exporting oil isn't limited by capacity to load it in tankers. Natural gas exports have been limited by export facilities for years and can't increase any meaningful amount.

-edit Note the price in April was lower than any month in 2025
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/rngwhhdm.htm

 

[SomewhereAroundBarstow]

Oregon has no sales tax.

Which is the #1 reason Vancouver, WA exists. Meanwhile, now that I'm over by the Idaho border I'm getting to see how our sales tax money is being used to cover medical services for uninsured Idahoans as required by our state law. It'd be nice if their state took care of their own instead. But at least the Idahoans come over here and buy a lot of weed to take back to their theocracy, so that helps a bit.

 

[EngineerX]

This is a great example of the "invisible hand" at work. Since solar and wind are so much less expensive than natural gas or coal, renewable are slowly taking over from fossil fuels. The only thing slowing down the switch right now is the tendency of Trump and his cronies to put their collective thumb on the scales.

As for hydro, I expect that will start to reduce over the next few years as the effects of the current drought start to take hold.

Sir, I see no invisible hand.
Anyway, today's market can't afford one.

 

[EngineerX]

All of everything is temporary...except entropy. Entropy is forever.

Entropy.

 

[Frank C.]

It was inevitable that renewables would arrive to this point and begin pressuring coal out of existence. As the cost cheapens, including ever cheaper battery storage, those pressures will begin to be applied to natural gas. After all, it's cheaper to fuel something for free 24/7 instead of having to plumb in fuel. Fuel that you had to pay for. That expense never goes away.

 

[phoenix_rizzen]

Here in California, a Senate committee unanimously approved a bill authorizing balcony solar, so we might get it in the near future. The proposed max limit is 1200w. One 400w panel could generate 14% of a typical apartment's needs, so x3 would be 42%; increasing the limit to 1600w would push that over 50% but baby steps for now, I guess.
Edison keeps reminding me I use half again as much electricity as my neighbors so anything to cut my bill would be welcome.

Is that 1200 W total per residence? Or 1200 W per circuit (which is pretty close to the max sustained load [1440 W] for a 120V/15A breaker).

 

[1Zach1]

Is that 1200 W total per residence? Or 1200 W per circuit (which is pretty close to the max sustained load [1440 W] for a 120V/15A breaker).

Per dwelling.

(c) “Portable solar generation device” means a moveable photovoltaic energy generation device that meets all of the following conditions:
(1) Has a maximum aggregated AC output of 1,200 watts per dwelling.
(2) Is designed to be connected to a building’s electrical system through a single standard electrical outlet.
(3) Is intended to offset the customer’s onsite electricity consumption.
(4) Meets the standards of the most recent version of the National Electrical Code. Code and the California Electrical Code (Part 3 of Title 24 of the California Code of Regulations).
(5) Is certified as a plug-in photovoltaic system by Underwriters Laboratories or an equivalent nationally recognized testing laboratory.
(6) Includes a feature, certified by Underwriters Laboratories or an equivalent nationally recognized testing laboratory, that isolates the portable solar generation device from the building’s electrical system to prevent the portable solar generation device from backfeeding electricity to the electrical grid during a power outage.

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB868

 

[andygates]

"the Persian Gulf conflict drives global natural gas prices higher"
Which unintuitively may lower US natural gas prices. A lot of natural gas is coproduced with oil and exporting oil isn't limited by capacity to load it in tankers. Natural gas exports have been limited by export facilities for years and can't increase any meaningful amount.

-edit Note the price in April was lower than any month in 2025
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/rngwhhdm.htm

Hard to predict, fluctuating fossil prices totally drive the abandonment of that whole bad deal for renewables and electricity. Sucks to be a petrostate.