According to a review of FERC data by the SUN DAY Campaign, solar energy accounted for 72% of new electricity generation capacity on the U.S. grid in the first ten months of 2025. Solar energy has held this position for 26 months in a row and has now replaced wind energy as the largest source of renewable energy capacity on the US electric grid.
In October alone, solar accounted for 60% of new generation capacity and FERC expects an additional 90 GW of solar to be deployed over the next three years, eclipsing new nuclear and coal deployments. In FERC’s latest monthly magazine “Update energy infrastructure(with data through October 31, 2025), 1,082 GW of solar power came into service in October, accounting for 59.8% of all new generation capacity added during the month. Compare that to natural gas at 727 MW and oil at 1 MW.
The amount of utility-scale solar added during the first ten months of 2025 is only 161 MW less than what was installed in the first ten months of 2024. From September 2023 to October 2025, solar energy was the largest source of new generation capacity, growing from 91.82 GW to 160.56 GW. Wind energy grew by 12.39 GW, while the net increase in natural gas was only 6.55 GW, with a total capacity of 160.09 GW.
Solar, wind, hydropower and biomass accounted for 87.2% of all new generation capacity, while natural gas added 12.4%, with the rest being oil and waste heat. All told, wind and solar power make up nearly one-fourth (23.79%) of the total available installed utility-scale generating capacity in the United States. More than 25% of American solar capacity consists of small-scale (rooftop) systems that are not reflected in FERC data. If you include that extra solar capacity, the share of solar and wind energy would be more than a quarter of the national total, according to the SUN DAY campaign.
All renewable energy capacity currently claims a 32.72% share of total U.S. utility-scale generation capacity. When small-scale solar capacity is included, renewables now account for more than one-third of total U.S. generating capacity.
Solar energy is on track to become the second largest source of U.S. generating capacity
Based on FERC estimates, utility-scale solar alone will represent 17.3% of installed U.S. generating capacity in three years, placing it second only to natural gas with an estimated 40.1% capacity. If all estimated renewable energy capacity is combined, utility-scale renewable energy could exceed 38%.
“It has now been a full year since Trump launched his attack on renewable energy with a series of anti-solar and anti-wind executive orders,” said Ken Bossong, executive director of the SUN DAY Campaign. “And while they may have slowed progress, the economic and environmental benefits of renewables continue to drive their dramatic growth.”
News item from the SUN DAY campaign
