The United States is on track for a record increase in power generation capacity in 2025, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reports. 

The EIA said Aug. 20 that developers reported plans for 64 GW of new generation this year, which would surpass the current record — 58 GW — set in 2002. 

A key difference is that the 2002 total included 57 GW of natural gas-fired generation, while only 4.7 GW of gas generation is expected to come online in 2025. 

Instead, the majority of new capacity this year will involve the sun: EIA predicts 33.3 GW of new photovoltaic solar generation. 

Solar’s benefits to the planet notwithstanding, its capacity factor is much lower than gas-fired generation’s. But EIA reports 18.3 GW of battery storage capacity is expected to be commissioned in 2025, which will help smooth out the peaks and dips in solar generation. That would be a whopping 76% increase over the 10.4 GW of storage installed in 2024. 

Storage is not generation, but it is classified as a secondary source of electricity, so EIA includes it in its roundups of generation statistics. 

Rounding out the 2025 picture, EIA predicts 7.8 GW of wind generation being added to the grid this year. 

EIA’s solar and storage projections have changed in the six months since President Donald Trump returned to office, but not to a degree that would reflect his strongly anti-renewable, pro-fossil-fuel agenda. 

In its January 2025 Short-Term Energy Outlook, EIA said it expects 26 GW of new solar capacity in 2025 — substantially less than the 33.3 GW that developers now say they expect to complete this year.  

And in March 2025, EIA said the energy sector expected to add 19.6 GW of storage this year, a bit more than the 18.3 GW now expected. 

EIA’s Aug. 20 update also touched on the other side of the coin: retirement of generation. 

The industry expects to retire 8.7 GW of capacity this year, including 6.2 GW of coal and 1.6 GW of gas generation. But it had retired only 2 GW by the end of June and had canceled or delayed retirement of 3.6 GW of capacity. 

EIA reported in February 2025 that electricity generators planned to retire 12.3 GW of capacity this year, 65% more than in 2024. The great majority of this was to be coal plants and simple-cycle natural gas turbines.