Fossil fuels fall below 50% of US electricity for the first month on record
104 comments
·April 21, 2025neallindsay
toddmorey
That's the only environmental hope I've been able to hang onto. It's now cheaper in most places[1] for net new energy installations to NOT use fossil fuels. I knew environmentally conscious approaches could never survive being the morally correct yet more expensive option.
[1] IRENA 2023 report shows that solar photovoltaic (PV) generation was 56% less expensive than the weighted average fossil fuel-fired alternatives, despite being 414% more expensive back in 2010. Bloomberg New Energy Finance found in March 2021 that "renewables are the cheapest power option for 71% of global GDP and 85% of global power generation."
Paradigma11
But how much more expensive would it make the power for the last 15% of global power generation?
What is the total cost for both scenarios?
TuringNYC
>> solar panels are cheap
I want solar panels, but i'm also a skeptic on the cost, and not enough time has passed to prove how things will go. While I agree the metered cost may now favor solar -- what is the TCO for the average resident? Some things on my mind:
1. Everything seems inexpensive at first, before you have to pay for servicing. Just like with cars, HVAC systems, plumbing systems, or any complex system where you are at the mercy of repair companies that are highly local. With plumbers in our area, you cannot even effectively get multiple quotes because there is a "visit fee" of $125, which gets credited to repairs if you choose the provider.
2. Roofs in general are expensive to maintain and repair. Here on the costs, i've never seen even a minor repair be under 1k. Major roof replacements cost 5 to 15k for average homes. This might be a greater-metro-NY issue though. Part of it is the liability insurance of workers being on the roof, so I'm not saying the cost is unjustified -- just that it is really expensive.
3. What happens when these solar panels need to be serviced? Many of these solar shops are fly by night, looking to cash in on govt incentives. Will they be around to service malfunctioning or panels? What will repair costs be? Who guarantees the warranty? As an example, here in NJ even minor tweaks on a leaking showerhead will cost $500 to $1000. I can only imagine what a broken solar panel will cost.
4. I realize this is a very selfish opinion -- but just from a systems boundary perspective, traditional energy complexity is all upstream and I consume the end-product. Solar energy complexity is all local and I take the risk.
xbmcuser
Equipment cost is actually not that much now it mostly labor and marketing. That is the main reason solar makes countries with cheap labor have huge advantage with solar. A similar system will cost $60k in the US to $15-20k in India and China
MisterTea
1. HVAC manufactures have moved to building proprietary computer controlled HVAC systems which must be serviced by a certified technician. This allows them to build a system of regional service companies who maintain complete monopoly over an entire region. Even if you wanted to open a shop to compete with the incumbent, you can't because the manufacturer wont allow you if another shop in your region exists. The result is gate-kept artificial scarcity of technicians and parts allowing for price gouging. The solution is right to repair and boycotting these clowns.
2. Roof work has always been a huge cost as it's very labor intensive (I learned some flat roof maintenance from a roofer friend.) The issue is we have not developed a roof system that works in conjunction with solar panels. Until that happens roofs and solar will be orthogonal problems no one wants.
3. My work got semi-screwed by this. They used concrete blocks, around 60,000 pounds worth, to hold down metal frames the panels were bolted to. Total bonkers fly-by night operation company disappeared after 2 years and we had to maintain it ourselves. Roof was destroyed after 7 years as it was leaking all over and several cracks formed in the blocks around beams. It was deemed unsafe and the entire 75kW system removed. Building owner spent $200k on a new roof and building repairs then banned solar from being installed again.
4. So is your fancy HVAC system. I believe that electrical generation should become part of a homes infrastructure just like HVAC. It enables authority and autonomy over energy which is something I have wanted. Though I also believe if someone wishes to surrender that autonomy then they should be allowed to do so.
apercu
>2. Roofs in general are expensive to maintain and repair. Here on the costs, i've never seen even a minor repair be under 1k. Major roof replacements cost 5 to 15k for average homes. This might be a greater-metro-NY issue though. Part of it is the liability insurance of workers being on the roof, so I'm not saying the cost is unjustified -- just that it is really expensive.
Where exactly is this? I have a modest, single story house (1600 sq ft) and most of my estimates are ~$20k. (SW Wisconsin).
ChoGGi
If that's just stripping the old shingles off and placing new ones, you should be looking at around $6-10k.
Is there a lot of rebuilding or something going on around you?
My roof (1200 sq roof deck not house) would've been about 18, but that's because it had cedar shingles under the asphalt. I did it myself for 3 in materials and about 3 weeks of labour. These are all CAD prices.
kadushka
Major roof replacements cost 5 to 15k for average homes
I just got some quotes to replace a tile roof on my very average 2400 sqft house in FL: 50-60k. Asked neighbors - seems reasonable to them.
ChoGGi
That's the asphalt shingle price, tile is pricey.
apercu
I assume Florida is an outlier due to storms, in most of the country you'd probably pay half that unless your roof is complicated.
jeffbee
Nobody even mentioned rooftop solar.
testing22321
And getting cheaper everyday.
A year ago I paid $8k for 7.8kw on my roof. My Dad just paid $5k for 10kw.
Neither of us will ever pay for power again.
Edit: Western, southern Canada for those asking.
hyperhello
While the cost of power will be reduced, I think that's overly optimistic in the long run. Fixing the lines and power distribution systems when they wear out or get hit by weather is really the cost of your electricity bill. You can have a shared power grid, or not pay for it, but you can't have both. Even areas powered by hydro have to maintain cherry pickers for that.
homebrewer
At current rates, 5k USD is enough to cover my electricity costs for the next 87 years. Your quoted prices still make them a non-starter in (probably) most of the world.
kllrnohj
A 10kW system produces somewhere between 11,000kWh - 17,000kWh / year give or take. Qatar has one of lowest electricity prices in the world at $0.03/kW
$0.03 * 11,000kWh/year * 87 years = $28,710.
So either you're vastly underestimating the amount you pay in electricity, or you're using vastly less electricity in which case you obviously wouldn't get a 10kW system.
testing22321
Many parts of the US have staggeringly cheap power compared to the rest of the world.
Before all this our power bills were smack on $100 per month, so I’ve got about a 6.5 year pay off. Electricity here is 13 cents per kWh, but is confirmed to increase 5% per year basically forever. So my pay off is less than that.
kasey_junk
You are paying less than $5 a month for that level of energy generation?
Thats ummm extremely cheap.
bawolff
Well how much electricity are you using? If you use much less electricity, then you would need less solar panels which means the system would be cheaper.
I highly doubt there is anywhere in the world where you can buy the amount of energy specified by the parent as cheaply as you said. Like i think it would work out to less then a penny per kwh
If you are not accounting for amount of generation than this is an apples and oranges comparison.
enlyth
That's if the price of electricity doesn't change in the next 87 years
The panels are also a hedge against that uncertainty and provide self reliance
jfengel
The parts of the world that use so little electricity are not major contributors to climate change.
fullstop
Where are you, geographically? I'm interested in adding them but I have a large tree on the south side of my house that I really do not want to cut down.
jmyeet
I believe solar is the future. And hydro where approppriate. China is doing massive things with hydro. The largest hydro power station in the world is the Three Gorges Dam and they've just announced building one three times as large in Tibet for $137 billion [1].
But there's an issue with solar most people don't talk about. Yes it can be variable due to weather and day/night cycles. That's obvious. But a real issue is power lines.
Power lines are built to deliver power to businesses and homes. The cost of that is amortized over the electricity purchased by consumers. If people end up purchasing only half as much power due to more energy-efficient building standards, the use of solar, etc then the cost of the power lines is still the same except now it needs to be amortized over less electricity sold.
This I think is why municipalities tend to limit how much solar power houses are allowed to have. How do you build and maintain a grid when houses are generally self-suficient? Should you? Is it acceptable to not have a grid?
[1]: https://newatlas.com/energy/yarlung-tsangpo-hydroelectric-pr...
lifeoflejf
Do you think that will just be moved to the flat connection fee? I had an apt with a gas stove, and nothing else gas. The $8/m connection fee was pretty much my entire gas bill. If it’s $50/m per building to be connected to the grid, plus demand charges, then charge that and pass along wholesale energy costs.
Mistletoe
That’s really neat. Can you share what part of the world you live in? I’d love to do that.
isoprophlex
... during daytime, in summer. Or did you install a load of batteries, too?
testing22321
We use the grid like a battery, getting a one for one credit for everything we put in. So during summer/daytime we put in enough to then use up our credit in winter/nighttime.
The power we put in even covers the monthly connection fee.
I’m just about to hit 12 months with mine, 8 Mwh generated, never paid a bill.
In our area the cost of electricity is already Confirmed to increase 5% a year forever, so this will only get better for us.
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moomin
Yes, but solar panels are cheap as a consequence of investment, partly supported by many solar promotion policies around the world, that were inspired by climate change concerns.
This is actually a victory lap for political activism, we just need a lot more of it.
gmuslera
Maybe not shifting, but adding. Alternative energy sources are being adopted in increasing ways, but in absolute numbers traditional sources keep increasing too.
xbmcuser
The shift is about to come now as LCOE of Solar + Bess is cheaper than coal in China now and getting cheaper
bryanlarsen
That may no longer be true. For example, China's coal usage is down 5% YoY despite increased electricity usage.
https://cleantechnica.com/2025/04/20/chinas-coal-generation-...
tialaramex
Because we're talking about electricity the total power usage for the US is mostly stable.
It's not declining like the UK (efficiencies mean total electricity production is down about 25% this century despite population growth) but it's growing only a tiny fraction, like maybe 2% in a decade - much less than the amount of new solar and wind.
So it's definitely shifting, the biggest shift is away from coal. Coal is awful, it's too expensive and it's incredibly polluting, some of that shift is towards gas, which is also a fossil fuel but has the advantage that it burns cleaner and is often cheaper - but as we see in this data lots of the shift is to "green" sources.
wolfram74
No, it's definitely shifting, based on [0] the carbon emissions per kwh globally are down from 542 g/kwh to 481 g/kwh in the last 10 years, that's over a 10% reduction. Countries that are staying flat are the exception, not the norm.
[0]https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/carbon-intensity-electric...
1970-01-01
Tariffs are changing this, however. Buy them ASAP if you're building.
amima
To my understanding, scaling production to bring prices down due to economy of scale is the part of the initial plan, which was based on the data about climate change. So these things are connected.
moffkalast
Not to mention how much's been invested in government subsidies to develop that scale. Cheap solar is not a spontaneous occurrence by any means.
pyfon
Yeah I'd be subsidising panels coming in from China personally.
xbmcuser
Lol this to me was the greatest stupidity from Europe. I get Petro states like US or maybe even Canada complaining about China subsiding energy and hurting their oil and gas but what the fuck did Europe protect. They even got fucked over by US into a Russian war and now they are stuck buying US gas.
tiffanyh
One important point that’s not obvious from this article: U.S. pollution from fossil fuels isn’t actually decreasing.
From what I understand (and please correct me if I’m wrong), overall energy demand in the U.S. continues to grow year over year. Most of the additional energy needed is now being supplied by renewables.
So while we’re adding less new pollution—because the new energy is cleaner—we’re still producing the same amount of fossil fuel pollution as before.
The baseline pollution hasn’t gone down; we’ve just slowed the rate at which it increases.
Sayrus
According to EIA[1] and Wiki[2] fossil fuel electricity production has been rather stable or going slightly down on the last three years. However, US electricity is a small part of the US Energy Consumption. When you take those into account[3], renewables fall from 50% of the energy mix to less than 20% (10% if you don't include nuclear) but overall Fossil fuel usage is stable. The trend is going down if you take a longer time period.
[1] https://www.eia.gov/electricity/Annual/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_of_the_Unit...
[3] https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec1_3.pdf
ZeroGravitas
In the US greenhouse gasses are down across a variety of absolute metrics:
https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/united-states#what-ar...
In the electricity grid specifically they peaked around 2006 and are 15% below 1990 due to switching from coal to gas and introducing renewables
What you say is broadly true globally but western nations are mostly on the downslope and the globe as a whole is slowing and hopefully going negative soon.
tiffanyh
That's one of the most interesting links I've seen in a long time (regardless of subject).
Thanks for sharing because it puts things in perspective much easier due to the data it sourced.
wat10000
Is that a fact or a supposition based on fossil fuel generation continuing to grow? Pollution produced by fossil fuels isn’t necessarily equal. Modern power plants are significantly less polluting, and gas is much better than coal. If coal continued its decline and newer plants replaced some old ones, you could easily have less total pollution from increased fossil fuels generation.
apercu
I'd like to get solar, but I'm starting with a battery pack and a smaller solar install to cover those things that I would normal use a diesel generator for. It's amazing that the "cleaner" energy deniers won't be able to hold back cheaper energy.
bryanlarsen
Related: 40% of world's electricity is zero emissions:
https://cleantechnica.com/2025/04/19/zero-emissions-electric...
jmyeet
Energy is a frustrating topic because people have some very entrenched but uninformed opinions about it, like hte "energy independence" argument. We're clearly energy independent but people will look to see that we still import oil and natural gas and say we're not. That's a business. Refining is a business. Making LNG is a business. Canada has no real way of exporting oil and natural gas so we buy it, process it and either use it or export it.
Another: peak total and per-capita greenhouse gas emissions in the US peaked in about 2007 and has decreased ~10% since then [1]. We still produce the most per-capita so there's a long way to go. China leads the world on renewable energy builds by a mile. It's not even close. Yet their usage of coal is still increasing as is their greenhouse gas emissions (total and per-capita) due to a still industrializing population.
Electricity costs continue to increase [2]. Some blame this on renewables. It's not. This is a longstanding trend. It goes beyond inflation though. Utilities are generally regional monopolies. For some reason we've decided that privatizing these is somehow a good idea (it's not). The need for ever-increasing profits just means things will continue to get more expensive.
[1]: https://www.wri.org/insights/charts-explain-per-capita-green...
bryanlarsen
> [China] usage of coal is still increasing
China's coal usage is down 5% YoY. https://cleantechnica.com/2025/04/20/chinas-coal-generation-...
EduardoBautista
> Canada has no real way of exporting oil and natural gas so we buy it, process it and either use it or export it.
Just to be clear, you mean "we" as in the USA? So the USA basically manages the exports of Canadian fossil fuels?
jmyeet
Yes, I mean the USA. Here's a presentation on the Canadian oil and gas industry [1]. You can see that a very small portion is exported directly. Almost all of it is via pipelines to the USA.
This is a huge strategic benefit to the US, which is yet another reason why alienating Canada through tariffs and other policies is such a laughably ignorant and terrible idea.
It's also why anyone pointing to non-zero US imports of oil and gas as damning proof of the US not being energy independent is incredibly ill-informed.
[1]: https://www.capp.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Canadian-Expo...
ChoGGi
China is ramping up imports of Canadian crude.
https://financialpost.com/commodities/energy/oil-gas/china-u...
thegreatpeter
Is it bc solar is subsidized or is it bc it's cheaper? Every time I walk into Lowes I'm sold on solar but they say it's bc the government is heavily subsidizing it
Bluecobra
If you look up your address here it will give you the cost breakdown. (https://sunroof.withgoogle.com/) I just checked my house again and it’s $30K for 10kW, but there is a $10K tax credit, so the subsidy is a 1/3 of the cost.
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acidburnNSA
[flagged]
pjc50
Had to check, and was surprised to see that new reactors have actually come online in the last couple of years. https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=228&t=21
Hydro still growing too despite the occasional dam removal project: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61883
But the reason wind and solar are winning is that they're so, so much easier to deploy. More countries should legalize balcony solar, too.
ZeroGravitas
The interactive data from Ember shows both US nuclear and hydro generation as flat over the last 25 years. Hydro has more variation over that time but is actually down slightly overall.
They make it really hard to link to specific graph configurations though
infecto
Is hydro growing or is it simply the change in rainfall year to year causing the fluctuations. Hydro is not that great for the surrounding environment.
devoutsalsa
One of the limitations of hydro is that most of the good spots are already in use. And that doesn’t account for environmental impact or age of damns.
xeromal
I believe Georgia, my home state, has installed 2 new reactors in the past few years.
muldvarp
Yes and those two reactors make up two thirds of all new nuclear reactors in the US in the last 29 years. There is no nuclear renaissance in the US and it really doesn't look like there will be one in the (near) future. Especially given how extremely badly the construction of those three reactors (and the two cancelled reactors) went.
jeffbee
It would also be correct to say that Georgia has built 2 reactors in the past 35 years.
Zigurd
The risk premium for nuclear gets left out of the discussion for a seemingly disconnected set of reasons: Cost overruns due to bad project management are not factored in to budgets because the Bad Things that happen to projects are not on the bill of materials, and decommissioning cost overruns are so far in the future that we'll all be dead by then.
Neither technology, nor economic systems can fix that. Nobody has a repeatable recipe for success.
acidburnNSA
Project risk and financing is a big problem in nuclear for sure.
Decommissioning nuclear is paid for by a decommissioning trust fund that is paid into by law by rate payers during operation of the plant.
The recipe is sort of understood though: choose a good enough tried-and-true reactor and serialize production of it. This is how France built 50 reactors in 15 years. It's how China is now building several dozen.
Zigurd
One can point to examples of successful reactor construction projects. But despite those examples, they are no more repeatable than cold fusion experiments. People keep trying, and failing. Often these supposedly successful examples fall apart when you examine decommissioning costs, which in France look to be about four times the amount budgeted.
tfourb
China is only building enough nuclear capacity to roughly keep nuclear‘s share of overall electricity production stable at around 15%, if I remember correctly. And that’s probably mostly to keep the technology alive for military and strategic reasons. China’s actual energy demands will be met by Wind and Solar.
ta1243
Nuclear is no use for the grid as it can't flex. Sometimes a grid needs 80 units, sometimes 50 units. Nuclear can't provide 80 units all the time as its unaffordable, can't increase or decrease output economically, and only makes sense when they're run 24/7 (except when it has to go offline for maintenence or other issues like heatwaves [0])
[0] https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/07/13/frances-nuclear-po...
vbarrielle
I must have missed the news about solar and wind being able to flex.
filmor
Both of them can be trivially downregulated.
acidburnNSA
"in current market conditions"
Nuclear plants can load follow at around 3-5% full power per minute. They choose not to due to current market conditions that do not value their ability to provide 24/7 clean heat and electricity, but markets could be changed.
lonelyasacloud
It’s essential for charging all of the planet saving humongous electric SUV’s the car companies that fund our politicians want us to buy though.
bryanlarsen
Using expensive nuclear to charge a big battery is uneconomical. Use the expensive reliable energy for things that need reliable energy (like hospitals) and the cheap intermittent energy to charge cars.
sokoloff
Nuclear excels at providing that 50 (or 40 or 55) though.
jfengel
Solar and wind are responsible for the majority of the change. We're not building new hydro and nuclear is growing very slowly.
The shift from fossil fuel is mostly towards wind and solar. That's the news.
infecto
What’s your point? Hydro and nuclear are pretty dead technologies. Hydro hurts the surrounding environment and nuclear has massive cost overruns and may require water for cooling. Wind and solar comparatively are much easier to deploy and recoup costs.
kllrnohj
Nuclear is politically dead, maybe, but it's absolutely the technology we need right now and should be using a hell of a lot more than we are. Solar and wind are great, but they need massive grid storage systems that we don't really have great options for. Nuclear is the consistent, safe power that everyone should be using as their core power solution, with solar & wind augmenting it.
acidburnNSA
New surveys just came out showing record breaking support for nuclear. 61% approval! It's even seeing potential revivals in Germany. There's strong bi-partisan support for nuclear in the US. I don't think calling it politically dead is right these days.
xeromal
Power grids need a mix of sources and nuclear is best suited for handling a baseline of power while batteries, wind, and solar handle the flexible portions.
acidburnNSA
I think we can all agree that the reporting should at least mention what makes up a full half of the clean energy being celebrated.
bryanlarsen
The more important headline is this: https://cleantechnica.com/2025/04/19/zero-emissions-electric...
America might get a sizeable portion of it's clean electricity from nuclear, but the rest of the world certainly doesn't.
muldvarp
The entire point of the article is that renewables are growing and that growth is entirely due to solar and wind.
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throwawaysleep
Hydro and nuclear are expensive and have large constituencies against them. Solar and wind are cheap and projects are small enough to avoid opposition.
acidburnNSA
Doesn't mean hydro and nuclear don't make half of the clean energy being discussed. Also, expensive is debatable when you consider full systems costs, including transmissions and dealing with daily and seasonal intermittency.
Despite all the data about climate change, the thing that is actually shifting us away from fossil fuels is that solar panels are cheap.