In the last 12 months, Zonne Energy has become the largest electricity source in California, a trend that will probably take place.
In the past year, Zonne generation exceeded natural gas to become the most important electricity source of California, a milestone that is expected to continue to exist.
Data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), processed by Ember’s US Electricity Data ExplorerShow that in the 12 months ending on April 2025, Solar 83.1 Terawatt hours (TWH) generated electricity, compared to 81.6 TWH from natural gas.
During that period, California generated a total of 244.9 TWH, with the solar accounting 33.3% contributing 33.3%.
Natural gas is good for almost all use of fossil fuels in the current generation of California, with only 0.1% of the state of the state from coal and 0.02% from other fossil sources. In total, about two -thirds of the state of the state comes from emission -free sources.
The shift in rankings between solar energy and gas is mainly due to the sharp increase in the solar generation, although natural gas has also fallen as a part of the mix.
From 2014, when the EIA started following distributed solar energy, until the end of 2024, the sun grew from 7% of California’s electricity to more than 32%. In the same period, natural gas fell from almost 59% to 35% in 2024 and to 33.3% for the most recent 12 months.
Yet the total amount of burnt gas has only fallen slightly and has essentially stagnated since 2017. Gas generation peaked just over 88 TWH in 2017, fell to around 86 TWH in 2024. This represents a decrease of only 2.3% for almost a decade, based on a somewhat chosen comparison.
More recent, however, the fall rate has been accelerated, probably powered by Battery capacity Implementations Combined with extra solar energy. This is switched on Greater solar useEspecially during the evening peak periods dominated by gas. Comparison of the first four months of 2024 with the same period in 2023, gas generation fell by more than 18% and fell by 12% compared to the same period in 2017.
The California battery fleet now plays a central role in changing solar energy in the evening. From April 2025, the state had installed more than 15.7 GW battery capacity, making it short Grid’s largest electricity source During the evening peaks. Storage has doubled around the 1.2 year, now more than 10 GW output and around 40 GWh of total energy.
Nationally, the generation of solar energy continues to rise. Solar delivered in April 10.64% of American electricity For the month (the first time that the country exceeded the 10% figure) and 7.35% of the generation wore during the rolling 12 months. For comparison, California produced 42% of its electricity from solar energy at its seasonal peak in April, where May would push that figure even higher.
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