US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it
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Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it
#2Curiously, TFA doesn't raise the question of why demand surged, it spends its 8 microparagraphs only praising solar.
Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it
#3Solar can be deployed by hundreds of thousands of individual efforts and financing at the same time, with almost no bureaucracy. It starts to produce electricity basically the same day.
I can't imagine anything being able to compete with that for speed and scale - or costs, for that matter. Once deployed it's basically free.
Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it
#4Solar can be deployed by hundreds of thousands of individual efforts and financing at the same time, with almost no bureaucracy. It starts to produce electricity basically the same day. I can't imagine anything being able to compete with that for speed and scale - or costs, for that matter. Once deployed it's basically free.
The issue is that works perfectly well when solar is a small % of the grid, but when that number grows, then you need grid scale solutions and coordination for things to continue working well. And that requires both technical skill and political will.
Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it
#5Jevons paradox in action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it
#6Curiously, TFA doesn't raise the question of why demand surged, it spends its 8 microparagraphs only praising solar.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say it has some thing to do with those data centers and LLM stuff.
Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it
#7Solar can be deployed by hundreds of thousands of individual efforts and financing at the same time, with almost no bureaucracy. It starts to produce electricity basically the same day. I can't imagine anything being able to compete with that for speed and scale - or costs, for that matter. Once deployed it's basically free.
The issue is that works perfectly well when solar is a small % of the grid, but when that number grows, then you need grid scale solutions and coordination for things to continue working well. And that requires both technical skill and political will.
(Home) batteries are quickly becoming cheap and per-hour electricity rates can be implemented at a reasonable time. With that, the grid owner can influence the grid stability without having to build capacity or generation itself.
Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it
#8Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it
#9Jevons paradox in action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
Also known as induced demand (as more is available)
Re: US electricity demand surged in 2025 – solar handled 61% of it
#10Solar can be deployed by hundreds of thousands of individual efforts and financing at the same time, with almost no bureaucracy. It starts to produce electricity basically the same day. I can't imagine anything being able to compete with that for speed and scale - or costs, for that matter. Once deployed it's basically free.
The issue is that works perfectly well when solar is a small % of the grid, but when that number grows, then you need grid scale solutions and coordination for things to continue working well. And that requires both technical skill and political will.
We see that quite often here in the summer as the energy price sometimes drops to minus 60ct/kWh (more often it hovers around -5 to -10). It is pretty much "please use everything now" to avoid grid issues. It often happens on very clear days with lots of wind.