Throughout 2025, concerns over the US grid’s capacity to manage rising demand, primarily due to the expansion of data centers, repeatedly made headlines. Early in the year, electricity demand had spiked by nearly 5 percent compared to the previous year, signaling a potential crisis. This increase had an unfortunate consequence: for the first time since the decline in its usage, coal consumption rose.
However, since the release of data from the first quarter, demand growth has steadily slowed. According to the latest data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), which covers the first nine months of 2025, total electricity demand has risen by just 2.3 percent. This reduced rate of growth suggests that the remarkable expansion of solar energy could largely accommodate the increased demand.
Better than Feared
Looking at the first quarter of 2025, the data appeared grim, with a 4.8 percent rise in electricity demand compared to the same period the previous year. Even though solar power continued its impressive growth—up by an incredible 44 percent—it managed to cover only a third of the demand increase. As a consequence and due to reduced natural gas usage, coal consumption surged by 23 percent.
Over the following six months, circumstances improved significantly. While total electricity demand continued to rise, it did so at a more modest 2.3 percent rate, with potential for further reduction depending on weather-driven heating needs. On the other hand, solar power's growth, although slightly diminished, still achieved a 36 percent year-over-year increase. This growth in solar energy succeeded in compensating for over 80 percent of the rise in demand. (While it should be noted that solar's expansion likely impacted natural gas usage as well.) We are approaching a point where solar power is expanding quickly enough to completely counterbalance notable demand increases.