The United States added 22,332 megawatts of power plant capacity in the first half of this year, and the vast majority of it was utility-scale solar, batteries, and onshore wind.
Natural gas was next, and there was zero new coal or nuclear, according to the Energy Information Administration.
Through 2030, the US energy landscape looks a lot like these last six months in terms of the mix of new power plants, with solar and batteries leading the way, according to the EIA’s list of planned power plants.
I’m digging into the numbers to try to make sense of the contrast between the Trump administration’s push to expand use of natural gas, coal, and nuclear power, and the reality of which kinds of power plants—mainly renewables—are on track to serve the grid of the near future.
Some of this contrast can be explained by the normal lag to develop a power plant. Most of the recently completed projects have been in the works since about 2020, which feels like ancient history.
The Trump administration’s policy changes, which tend to favor fossil fuels and disfavor renewable energy, haven’t had much time to translate into projects with firm timelines.
But even so, it’s important to note that the administration is limited in how much, and how quickly, it can change trends in energy development, said David Victor, a professor of innovation and public policy at the University of California San Diego.
“There’s a lot of inertia in the system, which means that when you’re trying to build new clean stuff, it takes a long time to get going in that direction, but when you’re trying to stop building clean stuff and build dirty stuff, which seems to be the Trump policy, it takes a long time for that signal to be felt in the system,” he said.
Some wind and solar projects may be cancelled because of the rapid phaseout of tax credits in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Trump signed this month. The new law affects the investment tax credit and production tax credit, the main incentives for companies building utility-scale renewables.