Solar and Wind were good for almost 98% of the new electric generation capacity that had been added to the American schedule in the first quarter of 2025 and were the only sources of new capacity in March. The Sun Day campaign rated Data from Ferc To discover that March 2025 was the 19th consecutive month in which Solar was the largest source of new capacity.
Credit: APA Solar
In its last monthly “Update for energy -infrastructure“Report, Ferc reported 31” units “of Solar 446 MW in March, together with one unit of Wind-it 223.9 MW Shamrock Wind & Storage project in Crockett County, Texas. Combined, they accounted for 100% of all new generating capacity that was added during the month.
And for the first three months of the year, the combination of solar and wind (7,076 MW) was 97.8% of the new capacity, while natural gas (147 MW) only supplied 2.0% and another 0.2% came out of oil (11 MW).
Solar was good for two -thirds (66.6%) of all new generating capacity that was taken into use in March. For the first quarter, Solar accounted for 72.3% of the added new capacity. Solar is now the largest source of new generating capacity that has been added every month for 19 consecutive months added: September 2023 to March 2025.
New wind was responsible for the remaining third (33.4%) of the capacity extensions in March and provided more than a fourth (25.5%) of new additions for the quarter.
The installed capacities of solar energy (10.7%) and wind (11.8%) are now each more than one tenth of the total of the nation. All in all, they are almost a fourth (22.5%) of the total available generating capacity of the country.
Moreover, approximately 30% of American solar capacity in the form of small -scale (roof) systems are not reflected in Ferc’s data. The inclusion of that extra solar capacity would bring the share of solar energy and wind in more than a quarter of the total of the nation.
With the absorption of hydropower (7.7%), biomass (1.1%) and geothermal (0.3%), renewable energy sources currently claim a share of 31.5%of the total generating capacity in the field of US Utility scale. If small -scale solar capacity is included, renewable energy sources are now around a third of the total American -generating capacity.
For Perspectief, a year earlier, the mix of renewable energy sources on tools accounted for 29.4%of the total installed generating capacity, including solar energy (8.3%) and wind (11.8%). Five years ago it was 22.7%; Solar was 3.8% and the wind was 9.0%. Ten years ago it was 16.9% with wind at 5.7% and solar energy at 1.0%. So in the past decade the share of the wind in us that the capacity of us generates more than doubled, while that of solar energy has increased by more than ten times.
“Notwithstanding the anti-renewable energy efforts of the Trump government during the first 100+ days, the strong growth of solar and wind continues,” noted the executive director of the Sun Day Campaign Ken Bossong. “And Ferc’s latest data and predictions suggest that this will not change in the short term.”
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