Is solar’s growth finally slowing in the US?

美国的太阳能增长终于放缓了吗？

Normally, we try to update you quarterly on what’s going on with the US electric grid since it provides a nice view of developing trends and smooths out some month-to-month randomness. Unfortunately, I was out of the office when last month’s data was released, so this will be a seven-month update on 2026 trends. 通常，我们会尝试每季度为您更新美国电网的动态，因为这能很好地展现发展趋势，并平滑掉一些月度间的随机波动。遗憾的是，上个月发布数据时我不在办公室，所以这将是一份关于 2026 年趋势的七个月更新报告。

The top line item is that energy use is continuing to rise, albeit not as quickly as headlines about data centers might lead people to believe. Beyond data centers, there’s a growing electrification—things like EVs and heat pumps—that is shifting energy demands onto the grid. Despite all of this, electricity use has risen by only 2 percent compared to the same period last year. At this time the previous year, demand had risen by 3 percent compared to the year prior. 最核心的消息是，能源使用量仍在持续上升，尽管其速度并不像有关数据中心的头条新闻所暗示的那样快。除了数据中心，日益增长的电气化进程（如电动汽车和热泵）正在将能源需求转移到电网之上。尽管如此，与去年同期相比，电力使用量仅增长了 2%。而在去年同期，需求量较前一年增长了 3%。

Some of this may be due to continued improvements in efficiency, which had largely kept electricity demand stable throughout the early 2000s. And some of it may be because more data centers are generating their own power so that demand doesn’t show up on the grid. So far, the growth in demand hasn’t reached apocalyptic levels. 这部分原因可能归功于效率的持续提升，这种提升在 21 世纪初曾使电力需求基本保持稳定。另一部分原因可能是越来越多的数据中心开始自行发电，因此其需求并未体现在电网数据中。到目前为止，需求增长尚未达到灾难性的水平。

Slowing solar

太阳能增长放缓

The other big story in recent years has been the explosive growth of solar power. The astonishing growth rates we’ve been seeing—over 30 percent year over year in many quarters—would inevitably come to an end as the ever-larger installed base would cause an identical increase to register as a smaller percentage change. But for the first seven months of 2026, there’s a smaller increase in generation. 近年来另一个重大新闻是太阳能的爆发式增长。我们所见到的惊人增长率（许多季度同比增长超过 30%）终将结束，因为随着装机容量不断扩大，同样的增长量所对应的百分比变化会变小。但在 2026 年的前七个月，发电量的增幅确实出现了缩减。

Through September 2025, solar generated 48 terawatt-hours more than it had the year before. For the same period in 2026, that number was 39 TWh. That’s still good for a growth rate of 22 percent, but it’s a considerable drop-off at a time when demand is growing, and solar is the cheapest way to meet it. Obviously, the federal government is currently hostile to renewables and has removed incentives for their use, which may be slowing down solar’s previously astonishing expansion. 截至 2025 年 9 月，太阳能发电量比前一年增加了 48 太瓦时（TWh）。而在 2026 年同期，这一数字为 39 太瓦时。虽然 22% 的增长率依然不错，但在需求增长且太阳能是满足需求最廉价方式的情况下，这已是相当大的下滑。显然，联邦政府目前对可再生能源持敌对态度，并取消了相关激励措施，这可能正在拖慢太阳能此前惊人的扩张速度。

Small-scale solar, such as rooftop installations, has been growing at a slower rate, but still managed to increase by over 12 percent year over year. Combined with utility-scale generation, solar produced 72 percent as much electricity as coal over the first seven months of 2026, aided in part by coal declining by a bit over 10 percent from the same period the year before. 小型太阳能（如屋顶安装项目）的增长速度有所放缓，但仍实现了超过 12% 的同比增长。结合公用事业规模的发电量，2026 年前七个月太阳能的发电量达到了煤炭发电量的 72%，这在一定程度上得益于煤炭发电量较去年同期下降了 10% 以上。

Beyond solar and coal, all the changes in major electricity sources were less than 10 percent year over year. Hydro is up by 9 percent, wind by 6 percent, and nuclear and natural gas both by less than 2 percent. Overall, this leaves us with wind and solar now covering 21 percent of US electricity demand. Through the first seven months of 2026, the growth from these two sources alone was 55 TWh, while demand on the grid rose by 51 TWh. In other words, their growth meant that increased use of electricity could be met entirely by renewable sources. 除太阳能和煤炭外，其他主要电力来源的同比变化均低于 10%。水电增长了 9%，风电增长了 6%，核能和天然气均增长不到 2%。总体而言，风能和太阳能目前已覆盖了美国 21% 的电力需求。2026 年前七个月，仅这两个来源的增长量就达到了 55 太瓦时，而电网需求增长了 51 太瓦时。换句话说，它们的增长意味着电力使用量的增加完全可以由可再生能源来满足。

What’s next?

未来展望

The Energy Information Agency, which provides all the grid data, also keeps track of what they expect to be hooked up to the grid over the coming months, which provides some perspective on what we might expect to see over the next year. The latest version of this highlights a couple of trends and one almost-trend. The almost comes in the form of two large offshore wind projects that will be completed off the East Coast, including a 2.6 GW monster off Virginia. The Trump administration has paid off developers to stop building anything similar, so these will likely be the last of their kind until the 2030s. 提供所有电网数据的能源信息署（EIA）也在追踪未来几个月预计接入电网的项目，这为我们预测明年可能出现的情况提供了一些视角。最新报告强调了几个趋势和一个“准趋势”。这个“准趋势”是指东海岸即将完成的两个大型海上风电项目，其中包括弗吉尼亚州外海一个 2.6 吉瓦的巨型项目。特朗普政府已通过补偿金让开发商停止建设类似项目，因此这些项目很可能是 2030 年代之前同类项目中的绝唱。

Onshore wind development has continued throughout the Midwest and Plains regions. Those areas, along with the South, are also seeing a lot of solar development. This includes some significant facilities in Michigan and Wisconsin, which were probably too far north for the economics to have worked out just a few years back. Another notable change is that battery installations are starting to spread beyond the hotbeds in California. 陆上风电开发在中西部和平原地区持续进行。这些地区以及南部地区也见证了大量的太阳能开发。这包括密歇根州和威斯康星州的一些重要设施，而在几年前，这些地区由于地理位置偏北，经济效益可能还无法实现。另一个值得注意的变化是，电池储能设施的部署正开始从加利福尼亚州等热点地区向外扩散。