While I'm concerned about the environmental challenges of reversing the trend and increasing energy consumption, I'm happy that people are living in more comfortable homes, that the Amercian industrial base is being restored, that more and better services are being provided (better healthcare, inexpensive and healthy food, comfortable, efficient and inexpensive transportation).
That is what we're using this electricity for, right?
> That is what we're using this electricity for, right?
Yes, amongst others.
> increasing energy consumption, I'm happy that people are living in more comfortable homes, that the Amercian industrial base is being restored, that more and better services are being provided (better healthcare, inexpensive and healthy food, comfortable, efficient and inexpensive transportation).
Over the last 25 years, we've the seen the following change across the dimensions you picked:
Energy consumption: +15%
Population: +21%
Hospitals (hospital sector size as a function using employment as proxy): +45-50%
Homes: +27-30%
Food production: +23-25%
Transportation (vehicle miles travelled): +14-16%
------
Some take-aways:
Population grew faster than energy and transportation, implying major efficiency gains.
Housing stock outpaced population, reflecting smaller household sizes and more single-person households.
Healthcare expanded far faster than population, a structural shift rather than demographic necessity.
Food production grew roughly in line with population, but without proportional land expansion productivity gains.
Transportation growth lagged housing growth, suggesting more remote work, urbanization, and efficiency.
There is a push to switch from fossil fuel to electricity across the board, and that’s a good thing.
Cars are the big one. However even heating is going electric (heat pumps, not resistive). Induction stovetops outperform residential gas cooktops. Some cities are even experimenting with phasing out natural gas hookups for new construction.
It all adds up, and it a good thing. It doesn’t explain 100% of the growth but it’s a lot of it.
> Amercian industrial base is being restored, that more and better services are being provided (better healthcare, inexpensive and healthy food, comfortable, efficient and inexpensive transportation).
Trying to put concepts like “better healthcare” on to the growth of electricity demand is unrealistic but generally speaking we’re putting electricity to good use. It’s not being wasted.
We are indeed living in more comfortable homes. Americans are migrating to the sunbelt because of ample AC in the summer and the winters are pleasant. that’s a big part of why we have many fewer heat deaths per capita than Europe: https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/2025/08/02/opinion-us-heat-...
Solar can be deployed by hundreds of thousands of individual efforts and financing at the same time, with almost no bureaucracy. It starts to produce electricity basically the same day.
I can't imagine anything being able to compete with that for speed and scale - or costs, for that matter. Once deployed it's basically free.
The issue is that works perfectly well when solar is a small % of the grid, but when that number grows, then you need grid scale solutions and coordination for things to continue working well. And that requires both technical skill and political will.
Solar can't produce electricity at night, it's hardly a a credible sole competitor if the power surge requires a constant power supply. Renewables are most of the time coupled with gas power plants to handle this.
It’s too bad solar degrades over time. I think it’d be more of a no-brainer if we could actually manufacture it at scale domestically without it losing its efficiency over a 15 year period.
Thanks for sharing, although I don't understand how Saul expects everyone to buy electric cars. They are much too expensive in Australia and the charging infrastructure is not well distributed. Electric cars are also a massive risk in fires (they were a big problem in the LA fires), and Australia has a lot of fires.
Even an electrified kitchen (which Saul also suggests for everyone) is iffy in Australia, because good freestanding ovens with induction cooktops cost about 3x what freestanding ovens with a gas cooktop would cost, not to mention the electrical rewiring costs, which could be substantial especially if a conversion to 3-phase is needed.
First, US demand increased by 3.1%. That is bad - demand should be going down, since there is a need to conserve electricity while much of it is provided by CO2-emitting sources. That said - it is not such a huge "surge" that the fact that 61% of it was covered by an increase in Solar capacity is so impressive.
Second, Solar generation is said to have reached 84 TW. But if the increase in demand was 135 TW, and that's just 3.1% of total demand, then total demand is 4355 TW, and Solar accounts for 1.92% of generation. That is _really_ bad. Since we must get to near-0 emissions in electricity generation ASAP to avoid even harsher effects of global warming; and most of the non-Solar generation in the US is by Natural Gas and Coal [1].
You could nitpick and say that the important stat is "total renewables" rather than just Solar, and that the US has a lot of Nuclear, and that's technically true, but it's not as though Nuclear output is surging, and it has more obstacles and challenges, for reasons. So, the big surge to expect in the US is Solar - and we're only seeing very little of that. If you mis-contextualize it sounds like a lot: "60% of new demand! 27% increase since last year!" but that's not the right context.
It is not bad. Energy usage is the best proxy we have for societal wealth. It's starting to somewhat decouple, but I'd posit that's largely due to financial woo-woo than actual real wealth. Time shall tell. A lot of energy (no pun intended) was put into short-term easy wins on the efficiency side the last couple decades, but those low hanging fruits are largely picked over. In the end, it requires serious capital investment into energy production and distribution.
> demand should be going down
Naw. If we want to actually regain any sort of self-determination as a nation we need to re-industrialize and learn to make things again. This is a multi-generational project that takes decades to even build the foundation for. This all requires energy - preferably as clean and cheap as possible.
We should be looking what what China is doing. Building everything possible as quickly as possible. Spam solar, wind, nuclear, and yes natural gas which enables the former two to exist to begin with. Start spinning up battery plants as well on top of it. Coal I can grant is silly to invest in these days, re-purpose those plants as their useful lifetimes run out into natural gas or nuclear power plant sites.
Then start spamming long distance transmission lines throughout the country to further even out demand vs. supply, so more sunny and windy locations can pick up the slack in other regions of the country. Start telling NIMBYs to go pound sand.
This degrowth stuff is just a way to make poor and working class folks suffer. China and India are building so much energy production capacity it simply doesn't matter anyways. Build or have your grandchildren be left behind.
The title is disgusting click bait with the hopes to falsely make the reader believe that Solar covered 61% of the total annual power need and not just the YoY delta.
The cognitive dissonance around optimism regarding renewables and the fact that there are multiple military actions going on around the globe right now focused exclusively on extracting more fossil fuels from the ground is a bit much sometimes.
Why do people even pretend like we haven't signed up for "what's worse than the worse case scenario?" as far as climate goes?
The only way to reduce the already severe impacts of global warming are to keep fossil fuels in the ground. It doesn't matter how much energy is generated by solar so long as we continue to dig up and burn fossil fuels. It's quite clear that we have zero intentions of slowing down or even keeping our fossil fuel consumption steady.
If we had record electricity demand, and anything short of 100% of it was covered by renewables, that means we're burning more fossil fuels then we were before.
We have, pretty unequivocally at this point, signed up for seeing what the end game of civilization looks like rather than realistically exploring or even considering any alternatives.
I've thought about installing solar panels on my roof for years. But when I factor in installation costs, it never makes sense because the local energy rates are pretty reasonable... Also, I live in Southeast, a place with plenty of sun but nowhere near the Southwest.
Solar panel prices fell hugely in the past years. Is there anything that could significantly reduce installation costs?
It is definitely true that the labor cost of a solar installation is the largest driver of cost. In my area, there are solar incentives to offset this. For example I was able to cover a large portion of the loan with a 0% interest rate through a state program. For the remaining portion my bank had a low(er) interest loan (like 5%) specifically for solar. And neither of these loans were home equity loans which psychologically made me happier to apply for them.
Another thing, if you have the space, is to consider a ground mount. Ground mount hardware adds a little cost, but it is a lot easier for a solar installer to set up, so they finish faster. Since labor is the biggest driver of cost, then it makes sense to build a very big array that doesn’t just offset your operating costs but completely eliminates it (well, net-eliminates it anyway).
Yeah solar viability is highly dependent on your local conditions and electricity costs. Also on your utility’s buyback program.
I have low electricity costs, no time of use pricing, and I don’t think I can sell back. I also live in a very cloudy city. So solar doesn’t make much sense!
Where I live in the west, the time to break even was projected at 7.5y for panels rated that run at 85% for 25y and expected lifetime of 30y.
I think the main consideration where I live is whether you can make the investment and if you plan on staying in your house long enough to realize the benefit. Also nearly all of the power I offset is from coal.
So I'm reading it correctly, 39& of "the surge" was covered by traditional energy sources. Which still means use of traditional sources increased. Correct?
I guess the good news is, solar is available when demand is highest. Nonetheless, is it helping to solve a problem or is it serving more as an enabler of the status quo?
Did "demand surge" or was excess peak power sold of for nearly 0 to people that can spin up and turn off load on the turn of a dime (crypto)? We have had negative pricing (they pay you to take the power) to stabilize the grid due to solar/wind peaks.
This 61% figure is a significant milestone for grid resilience. At Storify News, we’ve been tracking how the 2025 surge wasn't just about general demand, but specifically the localized clusters of AI data centers and the electrification of industrial heat. What’s particularly interesting here is the "duck curve" management—solar handled the bulk of the demand surge, but it’s the rapid deployment of BESS (Battery Energy Storage Systems) that actually made this 61% figure viable without destabilizing the frequency. The question for 2026 is whether the transmission infrastructure can keep up with this pace of interconnection.
The book Here Comes the Sun by Bill McKibben is a really great read on the changing economics of solar. It came out August 2025 so its fairly up to date too.
What about behind the meter fossil fuel for datacenters? The underlying Ember one [0] is nearly all about the grid, with mention of behind the meter solar data being incomplete.
The delta here between population growth and energy consumption, + solid state storage, + the rate of PV efficiency improvement = FOS and NUC will very soon be the backup system. REN are the future. Dead dinosaurs are not the future.
The delta here between population growth and energy consumption, + solid state storage, + the rate of PV efficiency improvement = FOS and NUC will very soon be the backup system. REN are the future. Dead dinosaurs are not.
It really depends on how you write the headline. "US electricity demand surges in 2025 while new utility-scale solar installations decrease from 2024" is equally accurate. It's unclear what the future holds if the trend remains down or flat.
»US electricity demand jumped by 135 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2025, a 3.1% increase, the fourth‑largest annual rise of the past decade. Over that same period, solar generation grew by a record 83 TWh – a 27% increase from 2024 and the biggest absolute gain of any power source. That single jump in solar output covered 61% of all new electricity demand nationwide.«
This article equates generation with consumption which is a fallacy.
Lots of solar and wind generation is actually produced without meeting demand meaning that the generated electricity often has to be wasted.
[+] [-] jordanb|2 months ago|reply
That is what we're using this electricity for, right?
[+] [-] andsoitis|2 months ago|reply
Yes, amongst others.
> increasing energy consumption, I'm happy that people are living in more comfortable homes, that the Amercian industrial base is being restored, that more and better services are being provided (better healthcare, inexpensive and healthy food, comfortable, efficient and inexpensive transportation).
Over the last 25 years, we've the seen the following change across the dimensions you picked:
Energy consumption: +15%
Population: +21%
Hospitals (hospital sector size as a function using employment as proxy): +45-50%
Homes: +27-30%
Food production: +23-25%
Transportation (vehicle miles travelled): +14-16%
------
Some take-aways:
Population grew faster than energy and transportation, implying major efficiency gains.
Housing stock outpaced population, reflecting smaller household sizes and more single-person households.
Healthcare expanded far faster than population, a structural shift rather than demographic necessity.
Food production grew roughly in line with population, but without proportional land expansion productivity gains.
Transportation growth lagged housing growth, suggesting more remote work, urbanization, and efficiency.
[+] [-] Aurornis|2 months ago|reply
Cars are the big one. However even heating is going electric (heat pumps, not resistive). Induction stovetops outperform residential gas cooktops. Some cities are even experimenting with phasing out natural gas hookups for new construction.
It all adds up, and it a good thing. It doesn’t explain 100% of the growth but it’s a lot of it.
> Amercian industrial base is being restored, that more and better services are being provided (better healthcare, inexpensive and healthy food, comfortable, efficient and inexpensive transportation).
Trying to put concepts like “better healthcare” on to the growth of electricity demand is unrealistic but generally speaking we’re putting electricity to good use. It’s not being wasted.
[+] [-] setgree|2 months ago|reply
[+] [-] Kon5ole|2 months ago|reply
I can't imagine anything being able to compete with that for speed and scale - or costs, for that matter. Once deployed it's basically free.
[+] [-] danmaz74|2 months ago|reply
[+] [-] zahlman|2 months ago|reply
It can be.
Unless existing bureaucracy doesn't want that.
[+] [-] chiefalchemist|2 months ago|reply
[+] [-] Saline9515|2 months ago|reply
[+] [-] graemep|2 months ago|reply
[+] [-] api|2 months ago|reply
Big industrial projects. Big power plants. Big finance. Real men.
It’s silly. If you want a real men trip get into body building and MMA or something and use solar power.
[+] [-] exabrial|2 months ago|reply
[+] [-] ztetranz|2 months ago|reply
https://www.volts.wtf/p/whats-the-real-story-with-australian
The difference in the permitting process between Australia and US is staggering.
[+] [-] cbmuser|2 months ago|reply
If you want a good example, rather look at France!
[+] [-] intexpress|2 months ago|reply
Even an electrified kitchen (which Saul also suggests for everyone) is iffy in Australia, because good freestanding ovens with induction cooktops cost about 3x what freestanding ovens with a gas cooktop would cost, not to mention the electrical rewiring costs, which could be substantial especially if a conversion to 3-phase is needed.
[+] [-] MonkeyClub|2 months ago|reply
[+] [-] mcny|2 months ago|reply
[+] [-] jna_sh|2 months ago|reply
[+] [-] consp|2 months ago|reply
[+] [-] londons_explore|2 months ago|reply
Really doesn't sound like much of a surge then!
[+] [-] kowbell|2 months ago|reply
[+] [-] einpoklum|2 months ago|reply
First, US demand increased by 3.1%. That is bad - demand should be going down, since there is a need to conserve electricity while much of it is provided by CO2-emitting sources. That said - it is not such a huge "surge" that the fact that 61% of it was covered by an increase in Solar capacity is so impressive.
Second, Solar generation is said to have reached 84 TW. But if the increase in demand was 135 TW, and that's just 3.1% of total demand, then total demand is 4355 TW, and Solar accounts for 1.92% of generation. That is _really_ bad. Since we must get to near-0 emissions in electricity generation ASAP to avoid even harsher effects of global warming; and most of the non-Solar generation in the US is by Natural Gas and Coal [1].
You could nitpick and say that the important stat is "total renewables" rather than just Solar, and that the US has a lot of Nuclear, and that's technically true, but it's not as though Nuclear output is surging, and it has more obstacles and challenges, for reasons. So, the big surge to expect in the US is Solar - and we're only seeing very little of that. If you mis-contextualize it sounds like a lot: "60% of new demand! 27% increase since last year!" but that's not the right context.
[1] : https://www.statista.com/statistics/220174/total-us-electric...
[+] [-] morshu9001|2 months ago|reply
[+] [-] phil21|2 months ago|reply
It is not bad. Energy usage is the best proxy we have for societal wealth. It's starting to somewhat decouple, but I'd posit that's largely due to financial woo-woo than actual real wealth. Time shall tell. A lot of energy (no pun intended) was put into short-term easy wins on the efficiency side the last couple decades, but those low hanging fruits are largely picked over. In the end, it requires serious capital investment into energy production and distribution.
> demand should be going down
Naw. If we want to actually regain any sort of self-determination as a nation we need to re-industrialize and learn to make things again. This is a multi-generational project that takes decades to even build the foundation for. This all requires energy - preferably as clean and cheap as possible.
We should be looking what what China is doing. Building everything possible as quickly as possible. Spam solar, wind, nuclear, and yes natural gas which enables the former two to exist to begin with. Start spinning up battery plants as well on top of it. Coal I can grant is silly to invest in these days, re-purpose those plants as their useful lifetimes run out into natural gas or nuclear power plant sites.
Then start spamming long distance transmission lines throughout the country to further even out demand vs. supply, so more sunny and windy locations can pick up the slack in other regions of the country. Start telling NIMBYs to go pound sand.
This degrowth stuff is just a way to make poor and working class folks suffer. China and India are building so much energy production capacity it simply doesn't matter anyways. Build or have your grandchildren be left behind.
[+] [-] seniortaco|2 months ago|reply
[+] [-] crystal_revenge|2 months ago|reply
Why do people even pretend like we haven't signed up for "what's worse than the worse case scenario?" as far as climate goes?
The only way to reduce the already severe impacts of global warming are to keep fossil fuels in the ground. It doesn't matter how much energy is generated by solar so long as we continue to dig up and burn fossil fuels. It's quite clear that we have zero intentions of slowing down or even keeping our fossil fuel consumption steady.
If we had record electricity demand, and anything short of 100% of it was covered by renewables, that means we're burning more fossil fuels then we were before.
We have, pretty unequivocally at this point, signed up for seeing what the end game of civilization looks like rather than realistically exploring or even considering any alternatives.
[+] [-] unknown|2 months ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] glimshe|2 months ago|reply
Solar panel prices fell hugely in the past years. Is there anything that could significantly reduce installation costs?
[+] [-] apexalpha|2 months ago|reply
Apparently you even need a permit from the grid operator for it.
Here in NL they come to your house a week after you call and your panels are up and connected in 4 hours or so.
[+] [-] raddan|2 months ago|reply
Another thing, if you have the space, is to consider a ground mount. Ground mount hardware adds a little cost, but it is a lot easier for a solar installer to set up, so they finish faster. Since labor is the biggest driver of cost, then it makes sense to build a very big array that doesn’t just offset your operating costs but completely eliminates it (well, net-eliminates it anyway).
[+] [-] roland35|2 months ago|reply
I have low electricity costs, no time of use pricing, and I don’t think I can sell back. I also live in a very cloudy city. So solar doesn’t make much sense!
[+] [-] testing22321|2 months ago|reply
Complete no brainer.
[+] [-] deepsquirrelnet|2 months ago|reply
I think the main consideration where I live is whether you can make the investment and if you plan on staying in your house long enough to realize the benefit. Also nearly all of the power I offset is from coal.
[+] [-] chiefalchemist|2 months ago|reply
I guess the good news is, solar is available when demand is highest. Nonetheless, is it helping to solve a problem or is it serving more as an enabler of the status quo?
[+] [-] PeterStuer|2 months ago|reply
[+] [-] erricravi|2 months ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|2 months ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ciferkey|2 months ago|reply
[+] [-] chickenbig|2 months ago|reply
[0] https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/solar-met-61-of-us-...
[+] [-] wyattshacker|2 months ago|reply
[+] [-] wyattshacker|2 months ago|reply
[+] [-] baking|2 months ago|reply
[+] [-] ZeroGravitas|2 months ago|reply
This pumps the numbers for 2024 and depresses them for 2025.
[+] [-] cbmuser|2 months ago|reply
This article equates generation with consumption which is a fallacy.
Lots of solar and wind generation is actually produced without meeting demand meaning that the generated electricity often has to be wasted.
[+] [-] xeromal|2 months ago|reply
[+] [-] integricho|2 months ago|reply
[+] [-] BLKNSLVR|2 months ago|reply