{"id":481657,"date":"2025-12-31T05:13:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T05:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/481657\/"},"modified":"2025-12-31T05:13:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T05:13:07","slug":"so-much-winning-for-renewable-energy-in-the-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/481657\/","title":{"rendered":"So Much Winning For Renewable Energy In The US"},"content":{"rendered":"

Support CleanTechnica’s work through a Substack subscription<\/a> or on Stripe<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

File this under A for Another Thing Trump Failed At. US President Donald Trump threw everything he had against the renewable energy movement in 2025, killing off new clean power jobs by the thousands, eviscerating billions in new investments, and needlessly raising electricity costs, to boot. Still, for all the pain Trump has foisted upon ordinary working Americans, he failed to stop wind and solar from dominating new capacity additions this year \u2014 and his remaining three years in office promise more of the same.<\/p>\n

Renewable Energy Jobs Down \u2026<\/p>\n

Wait \u2026 whut? How can renewable energy dominate capacity additions over the next three years when thousands of households have lost their work in cleantech fields? After all, the numbers don\u2019t lie. People are hurting all over the country as a result of Trump\u2019s pullback on federal support for wind, solar, and EV-related projects. Surely that means Trump has won the war on renewables.<\/p>\n

\u201cBusinesses canceled, closed, and scaled back nearly $1.6 billion worth of large-scale factories and clean energy projects in September, bringing the total cost of projects cancelled in the private-sector to over $24 billion in 2025 alone,\u201d the business organization E2 noted in October.<\/p>\n

The pullbacks resulted in a job loss of almost 21,000<\/a> by September, E2 estimated. The hurt was not confined to Trump\u2019s political enemies, either. E2 calculated that Congressional districts under Republican representation lost 15,000 of those jobs, the consequence of losing $12.4 billion in investments as of September.<\/p>\n

Hands down, the highlight of Trump\u2019s war on renewables has been his gleefully malevolent attack on the domestic offshore wind industry, an effort that has upended energy planning<\/a> across coastal states while costing thousands of construction, manufacturing, and services jobs all around the industry\u2019s 40-state supply chain<\/a>. Still, offshore wind was an easy target. The industry depends on federal offshore leases under Trump\u2019s control. All he had to do was pull the leases, and, well, maybe it\u2019s not so easy after all.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month a federal judge affirmed Trump\u2019s authority to stop issuing new offshore leases, but the same judge also revoked Trump\u2019s ham-handed \u201csuspension\u201d of offshore leases<\/a> already under permit. Last week, Trump clapped back by issuing an emergency order halting work on 5 offshore wind farms<\/a> that are way beyond the permit phase and deep into construction. That move also wound up in court again after one of the developers, Dominion Energy, sued to resume work.<\/p>\n

A hearing was scheduled for Monday, December 29, but the judge decided to reschedule to January 16 in order to review the classified Defense Department report<\/a> that purportedly compelled the work to halt. Even if work eventually resumes on all five projects, the damage has been done<\/a>. Construction delays cost money, and local ratepayers will be left holding the bag for increased costs.<\/p>\n

\u2026 But Renewable Energy Prevails<\/p>\n

Despite the widespread human pain and financial consequences of this year\u2019s abrupt U-turn in federal energy policy, Trump failed to stop the forward momentum of the renewable energy revolution. After all, wind and solar \u2014 particularly solar \u2014 are now the most economical, accessible, and fastest ways to get more kilowatts into the grid (here\u2019s<\/a> a recent example). Trump lives in an intentionally fact-free world of his own making, but the sun will keep rising and the wind will keep blowing regardless of his intentions.<\/p>\n

Again, the numbers don\u2019t lie. Let\u2019s take a look at the latest news from the SUN DAY Campaign, where Ken Bossong has spent years summarizing data from federal agencies and underscoring the renewable energy highlights (see our SUN DAY Campaign archive here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

SUN DAY\u2019s latest analyses of data from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission can be found in full online under the headline<\/a>, \u201cSolar Dominates for the 25th Consecutive Month Providing 98% of New U.S. Electrical Generating Capacity in September and >75% Year-to-Date,\u201d (here\u2019s<\/a> one source), which pretty much sums up the situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cSolar has now been the largest source of new generating capacity added each month for 25 months straight: September 2023 \u2013 September 2025. During that period, total utility-scale solar capacity grew from 91.82 gigawatts (GW) to 158.43-GW. No other energy source added anything close to that amount of new capacity,\u201d Bossong elaborated.<\/p>\n

For all of Trump\u2019s efforts to stamp every last wind turbine into the ground, the domestic wind industry came in second only to solar for new capacity additions. Wind accounted for 11.7 gigawatts during the two-year period, blowing past natural gas, which is the only other domestic energy resource readily available for increase at scale. Gas only registered 4.6 gigawatts during that period.<\/p>\n

\u201cYear-to-date (YTD), solar and wind have each added more new capacity than did natural gas,\u201d Bossong emphasizes.<\/p>\n

How It Started \u2026<\/p>\n

To be clear, the damage done this year will continue to ripple out into lost opportunities and higher electricity rates. Still, Bossong draws attention to the strong showing of renewable energy past 2025 and into 2028, with solar pulling far ahead of the pack.<\/p>\n

\u201cFERC reports that net \u2018high probability\u2019 net additions of solar between October 2025 and September 2028 total 90,614-MW [90.614 gigawatts]\u00a0\u2013 an amount almost four times the forecast net \u2018high probability\u2019 additions for wind (23,093-MW), the second fastest growing resource,\u201d Bossong notes.<\/p>\n

In the same forecast period, other so-called clean(er) fuels are far behind. Natural gas racks up less than 7 gigawatts in added capacity, and nuclear registers a lowly 335 megawatts \u2014 a pretty poor showing considering that Trump has based his entire energy policy around the existence of a purported national emergency<\/a> \u2014\u00a0you know, like the kind that demands an \u201cimmediate remedy.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for Trump\u2019s pledge to keep the coal fires burning<\/a> in power plants all over the country, he pledged to do the same thing during his first term in office. That was a colossal failure, one that will continue into his second term. FERC projects that coal will shrink \u2014 not expand, shrink \u2014 by just over 24 gigawatts by 2028. Oil, which has a much smaller starting footprint, is also poised to shrink another 1.6 gigawatts during that period.<\/p>\n

\u201cTaken together, the net new \u2018high probability\u2019 net utility-scale capacity additions by all renewable energy sources over the next three years \u2013 i.e., the Trump Administration\u2019s remaining time in office \u2013 would total 114,239-MW,\u201d Bossong summarizes. \u201cOn the other hand, the installed capacity of fossil fuels and nuclear power combined would shrink by 18,596-MW.\u201d<\/p>\n

How It Ended \u2026<\/p>\n

Against this backdrop, it\u2019s helpful to recall that Trump\u2019s energy \u201cemergency\u201d declaration hit the Federal Register on January 29, 2025, directing federal agencies to facilitate the production of \u201ccrude oil, natural gas, lease condensates, natural gas liquids, refined petroleum products, uranium, coal, biofuels, geothermal heat, the kinetic movement of flowing water, and critical minerals\u201d as listed in Section 8 (here\u2019s<\/a> that link again).<\/p>\n

So much for facilitating. Sharp-eyed readers will notice that at least three forms of renewable energy explicitly made the cut \u2014 biomass, geothermal, and hydropower \u2014 with marine energy<\/a> also included as an unstated extension of \u201cthe kinetic movement of flowing water.\u201d The idea that any of those three can provide an\u201dimmediate remedy\u201d for a national energy emergency is laughable, particularly in the case of marine energy, which has barely gotten past the technology demonstration stage. If anyone gets the last laugh, it will be the geothermal industry<\/a>, which is just beginning \u2014 emphasis on beginning \u2014 to capitalize on a next-generation R&D effort.<\/p>\n

As for the here and now, well, here we are. If you have any thoughts about that, drop a note in the comment thread. Better yet, find your representatives in Congress<\/a> and let them know what you think.<\/p>\n

Photo:\u00a0When US President Trump declared a national energy emergency in January, renewable energy quickly rose to the occasion (coal, not so much) [credit: (cropped): US Department of Energy<\/a>).<\/p>\n

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