Coal's rebound year runs into solar's compounding
The rebound
US coal plants generated 737 terawatt-hours in 2025, up 13 percent from 652 in 2024 and the first annual increase since 2021. It interrupts one of the cleanest downtrends in American energy data: coal generation had fallen in five of the six preceding years, from 1,149 TWh in 2018 nearly down by half. When electricity demand outruns new supply, the standby fleet runs.
The compounding
Solar's 2025 was less dramatic and more consequential: 296 TWh, up 34 percent on the year. That is the seventh consecutive year of double-digit growth. Solar generated 64 TWh in 2018; output has multiplied four and a half times in seven years.
The distance between them
Coal still generated two and a half times as much electricity as solar in 2025, so the crossover headline remains years away on any arithmetic. But the two series behave differently: coal's output depends on how hard the existing fleet runs and resets each year with demand, while solar's depends on installed capacity and accumulates with every panel built.
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