February 28, 2025
4 min read
Solar and Wind Are Surging But CO2 Is Still Climbing—Here’s Why
Renewable energy broke records last year, but so did gas generation. That’s a climate problem
Wind turbines at dusk in the Palm Springs desert.
Stephanie Sawyer/Getty Images
CLIMATEWIRE | Wind and solar generation eclipsed coal throughout 2024, marking the first time renewable power outperformed coal for a full year.
But carbon emissions from electricity still climbed. That’s because natural gas also set record levels of generation last year. The burst of new gas pushed up greenhouse gases, offsetting modest carbon declines from coal and establishing gas as the leading source of climate pollution in the power industry — another first.
The twin developments highlight the diverging trends in America’s electricity landscape. Renewables have never been more important to the country’s grid, accounting for almost 16 percent of power generation last year. But gas is growing at an even faster clip, reflecting what many businesses see as its importance in meeting rising electricity demand from data centers.
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The trend comes as President Donald Trump scraps pollution regulations and pledges to roll back clean energy subsidies. The shift raises questions about the potential for future emissions cuts from power plants, which have slashed climate pollution at a faster rate than any other sector of the U.S. economy.
“I think it’s kind of an interesting moment to just reflect on what has been happening and where we’re going and what it implies,” said Robbie Orvis, an energy modeler at the clean energy think tank Energy Innovation. “The current administration has highlighted the need to increase energy supply, including electricity. They’ve put a focus on supporting the AI build-out in the country with data centers. And that’s coming at a time when the number one source of new power is solar and wind.”
Renewables have long been expected to overtake coal. A decade of coal plant retirements and renewable energy installations have seen the technologies swap positions in the country’s power stack. In 2022, the combination of wind, solar and other renewables like hydropower and geothermal collectively eclipsed coal.
Now, wind and solar are doing it on their own. Data released by the U.S. Energy Information Administration this week shows that wind and utility-scale solar generated a combined 669 terawatt-hours of electricity last year, compared to coal’s 652TWh, the agency said. Renewable generation climbed to 756 TWh when accounting for solar thermal and small scale solar production.
The milestone is notable. A decade ago, coal generated almost 40 percent of U.S. power generation while wind and solar accounted for less than 5 percent. In 2024, wind and solar nudged out coal, accounting for 15.5 percent of utility power generation to 15.2 percent for coal.
The tipping point followed a surge in solar installations last year. The 30 GW of new solar capacity installed in 2024 smashed the previous record of 19 GW set in 2023. Wind installed another 5 GW, the sector’s lowest installation total since 2014. Even so, the combination was enough to push power generation from the two industries past coal, which saw 4.5 GW of capacity shut down last year. That was the lowest level of coal retirements since 2011.
The challenge from a climate perspective is that gas generation has grown at an even faster clip than renewables over the last decade. Gas generation is up 66 percent, or 738 TWh, between 2014 and 2024, according to EIA figures. Wind and solar are up 240 percent over that time but have added less in absolute terms: 471 TWh.
In previous years, the combination of more gas, more renewables and less coal pushed emissions from the power sector down. The sector’s emissions last year were 1.54 billion tons, or 29 percent below 2014 levels, according to EPA data.
There was another factor: In the past, power demand was relatively flat, meaning that high-emission coal was effectively replaced by a cleaner alternative.
But that trend is ending. Last year, power generation rose 3 percent to meet an increase in electricity demand due to an especially hot summer and mounting needs from data centers. So while the country added more low-emission power, it was helping satisfy increased demand instead of replacing dirtier alternatives. Put differently, the 1.54 billion tons of CO2 emitted by U.S. power plants last year was essentially unchanged from 2023, when power plants emitted 1.52 billion tons of CO2.
Industry projections show power demand growing rapidly in the coming years, mostly due to data centers but also because of a growing number of electric vehicles and manufacturing operations.
“If all we do is build more natural gas, our emissions are not going to go down. They might stay flat as they did last year,” said Costa Samaras, a professor who studies the energy industry at Carnegie Mellon University and served as a climate adviser in the Biden administration. “Sooner or later, we’re going to run out of coal to displace.”
This story also appears in Energywire.
Reprinted from E&E News with permission from POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2025. E&E News provides essential news for energy and environment professionals.
