The American electricity network added more capacity than solar energy in 2024 than from any other source in just one year in more than two decades, according to a new industry report released on Tuesday.
The data was released a day after the new US Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, was strongly criticized for solar and wind energy on two fronts. He said on Monday at the beginning of Ceraweek by S&P Global, an annual Houston energy meeting that they could not meet the increasing electricity needs of the world and that their use increased energy costs.
The report, produced by the solar energy union and Wood Mackenzie, a research company, said that about 50 gigawatts of the new solar production capacity were added last year, much more than any other source of electricity.
Mr Wright and President Trump have strongly criticized the renewable energy, which former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. defended as a way of dealing with climate change. The Secretary of Energy, Mr Trump and the Republicans in Congress, pledged to overthrow many of Mr Biden’s climate and energy policies.
“Apart from the obvious scale and cost problems, there is not just natural ways, the wind, the solar and the batteries could replace the myriad uses of gas,” said Mr Wright, who was previously chief executive of an oil production company.
However, solar and battery storage systems appear to have significant momentum and may not be easily canceled. The US Energy Information Administration, which is part of Mr Wright’s section, said last month that it expects solar and batteries to continue to drive new capacity facilities on US electricity networks this year.
Clean energy supporters celebrated the milestone for solar energy as people are moving to increase electricity production to meet the needs of the hungry energy centers to support the development of artificial intelligence.
“There is a wild agreement that to do this, we must have enough electricity and there are events that show that the fastest way to do this and the cheapest way to do this is through the development of solar storage,” said Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of Solar Association.
In a discussion in the group, the leader of one of the nation’s largest utility companies recognized Solar’s ability to deliver new and cheap electricity production.
“Renewable energy sources are ready to go now because they have been put into operation,” said John Ketchum, president and chief executive of Nextera Energy, the largest producer of renewable energy and the parent company of Florida Power & Light, a useful power plants.
However, Mr Wright said that the growing use of solar and wind energy has led to the cost of electricity, which has increased steadily over the last two years. Some of this increase is due to the sharp jump in the cost of oil and gas following the Russian invasion of 2022 in Ukraine and to grid upgrades that experts say that utilities had been postponed for many years.
“The wind and the solar energy, the Darlings of the last administration and so much from the world today, provide about 3 % of the world primary energy,” Mr Wright said. “Everywhere the wind and solar penetration have increased significantly. Network prices have increased and network stability has decreased.”
Electricity rates across the country reached the highest levels in 2024, increasing an average of 4 percent at national level to $ 162.60 per month in December for standard 1,000 kilowatts of use, from $ 156.90 last year, according to the last federal figures.
Even when prices are rising, electricity demand is expected to increase drastically. Mr Ketchum predicted a 55 % increase in electricity demand over the next 20 years, almost one fifth of what is related to the development of data centers, with construction and industrial development representing much of the others.
Given projections on increased electricity demand, energy experts have stated that governments should focus on the financial access, reliability and safety of domestic and world energy, while not losing concerns about climate change.
“There will be bumps on the road,” said Ernest Moniz, who was an Energy Secretary at the Obama administration, in a discussion at Ceraweek. “We move on to this future low carbon.”
