This spring, clean energy in the US set record after record

This spring, the mix of power on the grid shifted more than most people realize. In May, solar generated more electricity nationwide than coal for the first time, making it the country's third-biggest power source for the month. Coal plants can run around the clock, but the country now has enough solar panels installed that daytime sun alone outproduced coal for the whole month.

The bigger story is what's happening after dark. In California, batteries (which store solar power to use later) covered 44% of evening electricity demand on one March night, and for a few hours on another day gas plants barely ran at all. A new wind farm feeding power in from New Mexico is also cutting into gas use overnight. New York set its own solar record in June, with most of that power coming from home and small business rooftop systems rather than big utility-scale farms, showing that even without wide-open desert, rooftop solar adds up. Texas broke records across the board this spring for batteries, wind, and solar working together.

None of this changes what any single homeowner needs to do right now, but it points to where the grid is headed: more solar, more batteries, and less reliance on gas at times when demand is otherwise easy to meet. The real test comes this summer, when heat waves push demand and air-conditioning use to their peaks, to see whether these cleaner sources can keep holding their ground.