On Tuesday, the US Energy Information Administration published its full-year figures showing how the country produced electricity in 2025. The picture is mixed. The negative: total demand rose noticeably, and a substantial portion of that uptick was met by increased coal use. The positive: solar sustained its remarkable expansion, producing 35 percent more electricity than a year earlier and, for the first time, exceeding hydroelectric generation.
Markets in flux
Total electricity consumption in the US increased by 2.8 percent, roughly 121 terawatt-hours. For decades consumption was largely flat, as efficiency gains and a declining industrial sector offset population and economic growth. Still, year-to-year swings have been common, driven by everything from heating and cooling needs to the effects of a global pandemic. In that context, the 2025 rise is concerning, but it doesn’t yet clearly indicate that the longer-term forces pushing demand upward have fully taken hold.
(Such forces include shifts to heat pumps, the electrification of transportation, and the expansion of data centers. While the first two often improve overall energy efficiency, they replace direct fossil-fuel use with electricity and therefore increase load on the grid.)
The key story for the year is how that additional demand was supplied. Had demand risen more modestly, the roughly 85 terawatt-hours added by expanded utility-scale and small-scale solar would have easily covered it. Instead, utility-scale solar growth only met about two-thirds of the increase (around 73 percent if wind is included). With no new nuclear capacity expected, the remainder was supplied by fossil fuels.
