Renewables will pass gas and reach 40% of US generating capacity within a year, a SUN DAY Campaign analysis of EIA data says

Renewable sources are on track to supply 40.4 percent of U.S. generating capacity by the end of August 2027, up from 37.7 percent today, which would put them ahead of natural gas. The projection comes from the SUN DAY Campaign, a clean-energy advocacy group, working from the Energy Information Administration’s Electric Power Monthly with data through August 31, 2026. Nuclear, at roughly one-fifth of the renewable share, would be left far behind.

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The 40 percent figure includes rooftop and other small-scale solar, which the EIA does not forecast, so part of the result rests on the campaign’s own assumption rather than an agency projection.

The pipeline of utility-scale additions

The agency’s own numbers come from developers’ filings for large plants. The EIA projects utility-scale renewables will add 53,117.3 megawatts through August 31, 2027, about 44 percent more than the 36,971.8 megawatts added in the prior twelve months, according to Electrek’s account of the analysis. Utility-scale solar supplies 44,603.1 megawatts of that and rises from 13.4 percent to 16.5 percent of all capacity, while wind adds 8,312.3 megawatts, including 3,355.0 megawatts offshore, and holds near 13.5 percent. The renewable share of utility-scale capacity alone climbs from 34.5 percent to 37.3 percent. No new nuclear capacity is projected, and fossil fuels show a net decline of 1,997.0 megawatts, all drawn from the EIA’s Electric Power Monthly, whose August 2026 data were released on October 23.

Batteries are part of the same build-out. Utility-scale storage is projected to grow by 23,656.2 megawatts, up 43.7 percent, to 77,753.2 megawatts. Over the past twelve months renewables added 43,497.9 megawatts and utility batteries 17,586.9 megawatts, while gas added 5,316.0 megawatts and coal lost 2,703.4 megawatts. Renewable growth was nearly 17 times the net growth of fossil fuels and nuclear combined, which was 2,612.6 megawatts.

Small-scale solar closes the gap between 37 and 40 percent

The jump from the utility-only 37.3 percent to the 40.4 percent headline is rooftop solar. Small-scale capacity already stands at 63,192.6 megawatts, and the EIA does not project it forward, so the SUN DAY Campaign assumed about 6,000 megawatts of new installations, close to the five-year average of roughly 6,400 megawatts a year. On that basis renewables would reach about 550,000 megawatts, against projected gas capacity of 518,312.8 megawatts, and pass gas by summer 2027. The EIA says small-scale solar generation has quadrupled in a decade, from 18,812 gigawatt-hours to 92,979 gigawatt-hours, which is why leaving it out would understate the picture. Electrek does not fully reconcile the two sets of shares, and readers should treat the 40 percent as a combined estimate.

The conclusion has been stable across the year. An August analysis using data through June put renewables at about 546,219 megawatts against 518,286 megawatts for gas by July 1, 2027, and a September update counted roughly 82.7 gigawatts of renewables and batteries arriving within a year. That update also shows the EIA projecting a net fossil fuel decline of 1,452.7 megawatts through July 2027 and no new nuclear capacity, and Bossong said in August that all signs indicate renewable growth is poised to expand even faster in the coming year.

The trend is longer than a year. In an eighteen-month tally from February 2025 through July 2026, renewables and batteries grew by more than 88,700 megawatts: utility-scale solar added 41,051.6 megawatts, a 32.7 percent increase, and utility battery storage added 26,629.5 megawatts, roughly doubling. Over the same stretch coal lost 4,131.8 megawatts, or 2.4 percent, gas gained 7,561.5 megawatts, or 1.5 percent, and nuclear gained 800.6 megawatts. Bossong told Electrek the administration had bet on the wrong horse, noting that all fossil fuels and nuclear combined added just 2,641.0 megawatts, or 0.3 percent, over that period.

Capacity is not the same as electricity delivered

Passing gas in capacity does not mean passing it in output, because a solar panel produces only while the sun shines and a gas plant can run around the clock. From January through August 2026, all renewables supplied 28.1 percent of U.S. generation, up from 26.2 percent a year earlier. Wind produced 333,367 gigawatt-hours, or 10.6 percent, and solar of all sizes 329,119 gigawatt-hours, or 10.5 percent, with hydropower at 5.7 percent. Gas output still grew 2.6 percent and nuclear 1.3 percent, while coal fell 8.7 percent. In the first four months of 2026 renewables supplied 30.0 percent of generation, up from 27.8 percent. In April, utility-scale solar capacity passed wind for the first time, 160,208.1 megawatts against 160,100.6.

Ken Bossong, executive director of the SUN DAY Campaign, said growth in solar, wind and battery storage has become unstoppable and that the fossil fuel and nuclear shares of generation and capacity continue to shrink. He is an advocate, and the analysis is his group’s reading of agency data, but the underlying filings and monthly figures are the EIA’s own.

The test comes with the next Electric Power Monthly, scheduled for November 24, 2026. If rooftop installations run well below the assumed 6,000 megawatts, the crossover slips past summer 2027, and the 40 percent share would arrive later than the campaign projects.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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