Solar and wind now generate more US electricity than coal for the first time

For the first time in the country’s history, electricity generated by solar and wind power together surpassed the output from coal over a full calendar year. The milestone, reached in 2024 and confirmed by federal energy data, marks a turning point in how the United States produces power, with two sources that barely registered a generation ago now collectively outproducing a fuel that dominated the grid for more than a century. The gap has continued to widen through 2025, underscoring that the crossover was not a one-off but part of a sustained shift.

The milestone in the numbers

Across 2024, combined generation from wind and solar edged past coal for the first time on an annual basis. Wind and solar together produced a record share of the nation’s electricity, on the order of 17 percent, while coal’s contribution slipped to roughly 15 percent, its lowest level on record. The figures come from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the federal agency that tracks the country’s energy production and consumption.

The precise framing matters. The crossover is a full-year comparison of the two renewable sources combined against coal; in individual months, the ranking can differ, and other sources, notably natural gas, remain the single largest contributor to the grid. Analysis of the 2024 results by the energy think tank Ember reached the same conclusion, describing the year as the first in which wind and solar out-generated coal nationwide.

How coal lost its lead

Coal’s decline has been decades in the making. Once the backbone of American electricity, coal has steadily lost ground as older plants retired and were not replaced, driven by a combination of economics, competition and environmental considerations. Cheap natural gas, made abundant by shale production, undercut coal on price for baseload generation, while the operating costs of aging coal plants climbed. The result has been a long, consistent slide in coal’s share of the generation mix.

Renewables filled much of the space that coal vacated. The cost of building solar and wind capacity fell dramatically over the past decade and a half, turning them into some of the least expensive sources of new electricity in many parts of the country. That affordability, together with supportive policies and corporate demand for cleaner power, spurred rapid construction of wind farms and solar installations, expanding their combined output year after year until it overtook coal.

Solar’s accelerating role

Within the renewable surge, solar has been the fastest-growing component. Utility-scale solar farms and smaller rooftop systems have added generating capacity at a brisk pace, and in some recent months solar alone has produced more electricity than coal, a marker of how quickly it has scaled. Data from the Energy Information Administration’s electricity statistics show solar output climbing sharply as new projects come online across the country.

Wind, while growing more slowly than solar in recent years, remains the larger of the two renewable sources by total generation, with extensive installations across the central plains and offshore development beginning to take shape. Together the two make an increasingly substantial and complementary contribution, since solar tends to peak during daytime hours while wind often blows strongest at night and in different seasons.

What the crossover does and does not mean

The achievement is significant as a symbol and as a measure of structural change, but it comes with important context. Wind and solar are variable, generating only when the wind blows and the sun shines, which places a premium on grid flexibility, energy storage and transmission to make full use of their output. Natural gas continues to supply the largest single share of electricity and to provide dispatchable power that can ramp up when renewable generation dips.

Still, the direction is unmistakable. Coal, long the leading source of American electricity, has been overtaken on an annual basis by two renewables that were minor players not long ago, and the trend has strengthened rather than reversed into the following year. The crossover reached in 2024 stands as a documented, federally confirmed marker of a grid in transition, with the balance continuing to tip further away from coal.

The infrastructure the shift demands

Sustaining and building on the milestone depends heavily on infrastructure beyond the wind turbines and solar panels themselves. Because renewable output rises and falls with weather and time of day, the grid increasingly relies on energy storage, chiefly large banks of batteries, to shift surplus generation into the evening and other periods of high demand. Battery capacity has expanded rapidly alongside solar, helping smooth the mismatch between when the sun shines and when electricity is most needed, and turning renewable generation into a more dependable resource than it would be on its own.

Transmission is the other constraint. Much of the country’s best wind and solar potential lies far from the cities that consume the most power, and moving that electricity requires high-capacity power lines that can take years to permit and build. The pace at which new transmission is constructed will shape how quickly renewables can keep growing, since projects that cannot connect to the grid or reach demand centers cannot contribute their full output.

A milestone with momentum

The significance of coal being overtaken lies partly in how durable the change appears. This was not a fluke driven by a single unusual year but the product of long-running trends, cheaper renewables, retiring coal plants and abundant natural gas, that show little sign of reversing. With solar capacity continuing to expand and coal plants continuing to close, the gap documented in 2024 widened rather than narrowed the following year, reinforcing that the crossover reflects a structural shift in how the United States generates electricity rather than a temporary fluctuation in the annual mix.

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

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