COMPARING JANUARY 2025 TO JANUARY 2024, EIA DATA SHOW:
- UTILITY-SCALE SOLAR EXPANDED BY A RECORD 58% WHILE WIND ENERGY'S OUTPUT GREW BY 25%
- PRODUCTION BY ALL RENEWABLES INCREASED BY 18% AND WAS GREATER THAN EITHER COAL OR NUCLEAR POWER
A review by the SUN DAY Campaign of data just released by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reveals that the mix of all renewable energy sources produced 18% more electricity in January than a year earlier as utility-scale solar expanded by 58% and wind by 25%.
Solar began 2025 with a record-setting expansion:
In its latest monthly "Electric Power Monthly" report (with data through January 31, 2025), EIA says utility-scale solar thermal and photovoltaic expanded by 57.7% while "estimated" small-scale (e.g., rooftop) solar PV increased by 12.0%. The combination of utility-scale and small-scale solar increased by 42.6% in January 2025 compared to January 2024. [1]
Thus, solar remained among the fastest growing sources of electricity and was nearly 5.1% of total U.S. electrical generation for the month - up from 3.8% a year earlier.
Wind also got off to a strong start in 2025:
Wind turbines across the U.S. produced 24.9% more electricity in January than they did a year earlier.
That output - 10.7% of total U.S. electrical generation - was more than double that produced by the nation's hydropower plants (5.2%). [2]
Electrical output by the mix of renewables continues to grow:
Electrical generation in January 2025 by wind plus utility-scale and small-scale solar was nearly a third (30.1%) greater than a year earlier. Combined, they provided 15.8% of total electrical generation, up from 12.8% in January 2024.
The mix of all renewables (i.e., wind and solar plus hydropower, biomass and geothermal) produced 18.0% more electricity in January than a year ago and provided 22.3% of total U.S. electricity production compared to 20.0% twelve months earlier.
Electrical generation by the combination of all renewables was 9.3% more than that provided by coal and 26.7% more than that produced by the nation's nuclear power plants.
Consequently, the mix of renewables retained their position as the second largest source of electrical generation, behind only natural gas.
"The expansion of both solar and wind in January was nothing less than explosive," noted the SUN DAY Campaign's executive director Ken Bossong. "It's now up to the Trump Administration to justify why it wants to slow or even reverse renewables' growth in favor of natural gas whose output in the same month actually dropped by 2.3%."
Source:
EIA released its latest "Electric Power Monthly" report on March 25, 2025. The full report can be found at: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly
For the data cited in this release, see Table ES1.A ("Total Electric Power Industry Summary Statistics, 2025 and 2024") as well as Table ES1.B ("Total Electric Power Industry Summary Statistics, Year-to-Date 2025 and 2024").
Notes:
[1] In its "Electric Power Monthly" report, EIA refers to small-scale or distributed solar as "Estimated Small Scale Solar Photovoltaic." Unless otherwise indicated, all calculations presented in this release include electrical generation by small-scale solar which EIA estimates to have totaled 5,380 gigawatthours (GWh) in January 2025. Utility-scale solar totaled 15,355-GWh.
[2] In January 2025, wind produced 43,630-GWh (10.7%) of total U.S. electrical generation while utility-scale and small-scale solar combined produced 20,735-GWh (5.1%) and hydropower produced 21,192-GWh (5.2%).
The SUN DAY Campaign is a non-profit research and educational organization founded in 1992 to support a rapid transition to 100% reliance on sustainable energy technologies as a cost-effective alternative to nuclear power and fossil fuels and as a solution to climate change.
