Wind and solar electricity growth outpaces the whole United States grid
Wind and solar electricity growth in the United States ran far ahead of the rest of the grid in the first half of 2026, a MAOWCE calculation from the government own generation tables. Combined wind and solar utility scale generation, which excludes rooftop solar panels on homes, reached 441.5 billion kilowatt hours in the first 6 months of 2026, up 11.8% from 394.9 billion kilowatt hours in the same period of 2025. Total electric power sector generation, meaning every fuel added together, grew only 2.2% over the same 6 months. Wind and solar combined therefore grew about 5 times faster than the grid as a whole, a MAOWCE calculation from the Energy Information Administration own Short Term Energy Outlook, the agency own monthly energy forecast.
All 4 figures are MAOWCE calculations, each fuel first and second quarter summed from the government own Short Term Energy Outlook table.
Show the numbers
| Wind and solar, first half 2025 | 394.9 |
| Wind and solar, first half 2026 | 441.5 |
| Coal and nuclear, first half 2025 | 733.5 |
| Coal and nuclear, first half 2026 | 700.5 |
Coal and nuclear moved in opposite directions from wind and solar
Coal and nuclear did not just grow slower than wind and solar, together the 2 fuels actually shrank. United States coal generation fell 11.3% in the first half of 2026 against the same period of 2025, from 351.2 billion kilowatt hours to 311.6 billion. Nuclear generation, which comes from power plants that split atoms to produce heat rather than burning fuel, rose only 1.7%, from 382.3 billion kilowatt hours to 388.9 billion. Added together, coal and nuclear generation combined fell 4.5%, from 733.5 billion kilowatt hours to 700.5 billion, a MAOWCE calculation from the same government table.
Checking a forecast against the real numbers that followed it
The first half 2026 figures above come from the agency own forecasting table, the Short Term Energy Outlook, completed September 3, 2026, before the year full data was confirmed. MAOWCE checked that forecast against a separate government table of confirmed generation released September 24, 2026, covering January through July 2026. That confirmed table shows solar up 22.0% and coal down 10.2% over those 7 months, both close to the forecast table own first half figures of 21.1% and 11.3%. That closeness, found only by pulling both government tables and comparing them directly rather than repeating either agency own summary, is what lets the first half 2026 figures above count as realized generation rather than a distant guess.
Each figure is a MAOWCE calculation, the change in generation from the first half of 2025 to the first half of 2026, all from the same government table.
Show the numbers
| Utility scale solar | 21.1 |
| Wind | 6.5 |
| Total grid generation | 2.2 |
Federal orders kept coal plants online longer than planned
Coal decline in 2026 builds on a year, 2025, when federal action kept more coal capacity running than operators themselves wanted. The Department of Energy issued emergency orders under Section 202c of the Federal Power Act, the law provision that lets the agency order a power plant to keep operating during an emergency, affecting 5 coal plants totaling 3,240 megawatts and directing them to keep running past their planned retirement. Only 2.6 gigawatts of coal capacity retired nationwide in 2025, the least since 2010, even though operators had originally planned to retire 8.5 gigawatts that year. The orders kept a competing fuel on the grid longer than expected, not an action against wind or solar, and help explain why coal decline in 2026 fell short of what operators once planned. Nearly 24 gigawatts of new land based wind capacity was still in development as of the end of the second quarter of 2026, representing more than 48 billion dollars of capital investment, according to the wind industry own trade group.