US coal generation rose 13 percent in 2025: a rebound year inside a shrinking share

Key takeaways

US coal plants generated 737 terawatt-hours in 2025, up 13 percent and the first increase since 2021. The rebound still leaves coal 36 percent below its 2018 output and about a third of its 2007 peak.
Solar generated 296 TWh, up 34 percent in its seventh straight year of double-digit growth. Its annual addition of 76 TWh nearly matched coal's rebound of 85, which means one strong coal year no longer changes the direction of the mix.
Coal's share of US generation has fallen from 28.3 percent in 2018 to 17.0 percent; solar's has risen from 1.6 to 6.8. Natural gas remains the largest source at 41.7 percent, and its 2025 decline is a large part of why coal ran more.

What's happening

Coal generation rose from 652 TWh in 2024 to 737 in 2025, interrupting a fall that had run five of the six prior years. The arithmetic of the rebound is visible in the other fuels: natural gas output fell 3.4 percent, its first decline since 2021, while demand kept growing, and the coal fleet filled the space. Wind added 12 TWh and nuclear was flat.

Solar grew 34 percent to 296 TWh. Its growth streak now reads 13, 24, 29, 25, 15, 33, and 34 percent across seven years, and because each rate applies to a larger base, the 2025 increase of 76 TWh was the largest yet.

4.6x

Solar generation's growth since 2018: from 64 terawatt-hours to 296. Coal fell from 1,149 to 737 TWh over the same seven years, its 2025 rebound included.

What a coal rebound year does and does not signal

A single up year reads differently at different scales. For coal it was cyclical: the fleet ran harder because demand grew and gas ran less, and even after the bounce, coal supplied 17.0 percent of US electricity against 28.3 percent seven years ago. For solar the year was structural: the growth compounds, and the additions now arrive at coal-rebound size every year rather than in exceptional ones.

The distance between the two lines tells it precisely. Coal out-generated solar by 1,086 TWh in 2018 and by 441 in 2025. The gap did widen slightly in 2025, from 432, because coal's one-year jump outran solar's addition. What separates the fuels is what happens next: coal's last rebound, 2021, was followed by three consecutive declines, while solar has risen every year since 2018.

What the chart shows

Coal peaked at 2,016 TWh in 2007 and has fallen by nearly two-thirds since, the steepest sustained decline of any major US fuel. Solar's curve barely registers before 2015 and then compounds: 64 TWh in 2018, 144 by 2022, 296 in 2025. On the chart the two lines converge from opposite directions, and the 2025 uptick in coal reads as a step on a staircase that still points down.

What to watch

Three lines decide whether 2025 was an interruption or a turn. Gas: its 63 TWh decline made room for coal, and a resumption of gas growth takes that room back. Solar: a 34 percent rate on a 296 TWh base would add roughly 100 TWh next year, more than coal's entire 2025 rebound. And coal itself: after 2021's 16 percent jump it fell three years straight, so the test of this rebound is whether it survives one more year.

Common questions

Is coal power increasing in the US?

It rose 13 percent in 2025, to 737 terawatt-hours, the first increase since 2021. The longer trend is down: coal generated 1,149 TWh in 2018 and supplied 28.3 percent of US electricity then, against 17.0 percent in 2025.

How much of US electricity comes from solar?

6.8 percent in 2025, or 296 terawatt-hours, up from 1.6 percent in 2018. Solar output has grown by double digits for seven consecutive years.

What is the largest source of electricity in the US?

Natural gas, at 41.7 percent of generation in 2025, about 1,807 terawatt-hours. Coal supplied 17.0 percent, and nuclear generated 785 TWh.

Why did coal generation go up in 2025?

The grid needed more output while natural gas generation fell 3.4 percent, its first decline since 2021, so coal plants ran more. Coal added 85 TWh, solar added 76, wind added 12, and nuclear was roughly flat.

Data: annual US electricity generation by fuel from the US Energy Information Administration (2001 to 2025), as published in the Kitegraph library: coal, solar, natural gas, and the full generation mix. Shares are computed against the sum of the mix series; the chart shows coal and solar, and the natural gas and mix series are linked above.