US renewable boom passes key milestone in April
摘要
2026年4月，美国太阳能发电量首次超过燃煤发电，标志着可再生能源发展的重要里程碑。尽管部分屋顶太阳能发电未并入电网，但太阳能持续快速增长，而煤炭发电继续下滑。4月太阳能占美国电网发电量的6%，煤炭为16%。
When last we looked at the state of the US grid, the ongoing explosion in solar energy had turned it into a major contributor, but one that still lagged well behind fossil-fuel-powered generation. So it was a bit of a surprise when preliminary data suggested that May 2026 saw solar power pass coal-fired generation for the first time in the US. Now, with the official release of April grid data by the Energy Information Administration, we can see that production of solar electricity had passed coal a month earlier—with a bit of a caveat.
The caveat being that a substantial chunk of that solar production never reached the grid, since it's produced by rooftop installations and used in the building they sit atop.
The situation heading into April/May was pretty simple. After a brief resurgence last year, coal use resumed its decline, despite repeated government attempts to prop it up. Meanwhile, solar continued its rapid growth, driven by its position as the cheapest way to add generating capacity in most of the US. But this growth started from a small base, and the early months of the year are marked by seasonally low solar production. As a result, growth above 20 percent year over year still left solar providing only 6 percent of the power on the US grid, a sharp contrast to coal's 16 percent.
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