The policies of the Biden administration will continue to shape the U.S. power portfolio a while longer, even as the Trump administration tries to make a hard right turn from renewables back to fossil fuel.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration on Feb. 24 said solar and battery storage dominate planned electric generation capacity additions to the U.S. grid in 2025, with natural gas providing only 7% of the 63 GW total.
Even the wind turbines that Trump wants to halt are expected to outstrip natural gas, with 7.7 GW of new wind capacity vs 4.4 GW of new gas-fired generation. EIA noted, however, that the data behind its projections was generated in December 2024, a month before Trump began a rapid-fire attempt to limit renewables and boost fossil fuel development.
In total, EIA projects 2025 additions of 32.5 GW of solar, 18.2 GW of storage, 7.7 GW of wind, 4.4 GW of gas and 0.2 GW of all other forms of generation.
That is nearly 63 GW — about 29% higher than the 48.6 GW installed in 2024, which itself was the largest single-year addition since 2002.
The 30 GW of solar added to the grid in 2024 was a record, and EIA expects solar installation to set another record in 2025, with Texas once again accounting for the lion’s share of projected new photovoltaic capacity: 11.6 GW.
Likewise, the 10.3 GW of battery storage installed nationwide in 2024 was a record, and EIA expects 2025 installations to far surpass that total. (EIA includes batteries in the generation capacity tally as a secondary source of stored electricity, not as a primary source of electrical generation.)
Wind is expected to bounce back from a slump: The 5.1 GW added in 2024 was the least since 2014. But EIA’s 2025 projection of 7.7 GW of new wind power is off by more than 9%, as it includes 715 MW from Revolution Wind, an offshore wind farm that has pushed its completion date back to 2026.
EIA also assumes Vineyard Wind 1 will come online in 2025. The 800-MW facility began construction off the Massachusetts coast in late 2022, with an anticipated 2024 in-service date. But it experienced significant delays and component failures in 2024, and in early 2025, it is well behind schedule, with no anticipated completion date listed on the project website.
Simple-cycle combustion turbines account for about half of the 4.4 GW of new natural gas-fired capacity projected to come online in 2025, and combined-cycle units account for about a third.
EIA said five states — Utah, Louisiana, Nebraska, North Dakota and Tennessee — account for about three-quarters of the expected gas additions, the largest of which are the 840-MW Intermountain Power Project in Utah (where 1,800 MW of coal-fired capacity is being retired) and the 679-MW Magnolia Power in Louisiana.
EIA reports that in 2023, 4.18 trillion kWh of electricity was generated at utility-scale facilities in the United States — 60% fossil, 21.4% renewable and 18.6% nuclear.
The largest components were natural gas (43.1%), atomic fission (18.6%), coal (16.2%), wind (10.2%), hydropower (5.7%) and photovoltaic solar (3.9%).
