Climate and environment updates: Wind and solar generated record amount of US electricity in 2025

Wind and solar energy generated a record 17% of electricity in the United States in 2025, up from less than 1% in 2005, according to new data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

The milestone comes amid federal energy policy changes, including the early phase-out of renewable tax incentives and other regulatory changes.

The total net generation from wind and solar together reached 760,000 gigawatt-hours (GWh) last year, enough to power tens of millions of average American homes, according to the EIA data. In 2024, these sources accounted for 16% of U.S. electricity generation, surpassing coal.

In 2025, utility-scale solar power generation totaled 296,000 GWh, up 34% from the previous year. Electricity from solar has increased every year since 2006 and continues to expand rapidly. Wind power generated 464,000 GWh, a 3% increase over 2024.

Despite recent U.S. government policy shifts that have deemphasized renewable energy and eliminated many financial incentives, renewable electricity generation continues to grow globally, and global renewable energy capacity is expected to more than double by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Renewable energy sources, including solar, wind and hydropower, are forecast to meet more than 90% of global electricity demand growth through 2030, with solar PV accounting for the largest share of new capacity, the IEA says.

“Solar PV is on course to account for some 80% of the increase in the world’s renewable capacity over the next five years,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said in a statement.

Globally, more than 90% of new renewable projects are now cheaper than fossil fuel alternatives, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). In 2024, solar photovoltaics (PV) were, on average, 41% cheaper than the lowest-cost fossil fuel alternatives, while onshore wind projects were 53% cheaper.

-ABC News meteorologist Dan Peck

The 2025 Atlantic hurricane season produced no U.S. landfalls, but one storm was so deadly and destructive that its name will never be used again, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

During the hurricane committee's annual meeting earlier this week, the group decided that Melissa will no longer be used for future tropical storms and hurricanes, joining destructive storms such as Katrina, Sandy, Maria, Harvey and Helene on the retired list.

The WMO's Hurricane Committee is responsible for the tropical cyclone name lists, which repeat every six years. The committee selected the name Molly to replace Melissa beginning in 2031.

Melissa is the strongest hurricane on record to make landfall in Jamaica, responsible for more than 90 deaths across Jamaica, Haiti and the other Caribbean island nations. In Jamaica, the estimated physical damage to buildings, housing, infrastructure, and agriculture exceeds $8 billion, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The storm ranks as one of the most powerful hurricanes on record to make landfall in the Atlantic basin, tied with Hurricane Dorian (2019) and the "Labor Day" hurricane (1935) for the strongest recorded sustained winds at landfall.

“After more than four months since the passage of Melissa over Jamaica, stories about the impacts and recovery continue to dominate the news and media. Melissa has now been engraved in the collective memory of the nation,” said Evan Thompson, Principal Director at Meteorological Service, Jamaica, and President of WMO’s Regional Association IV.

The Atlantic hurricane season begins on June 1, with NOAA releasing its official outlook for the upcoming season in May.

-ABC News meteorologist Dan Peck

Energy Star, the Environmental Protection Agency’s voluntary energy-efficiency labeling program, will continue for at least another year.

The Trump administration signaled last year that it was considering ending support for the program, but Congress has maintained funding during the recent appropriations process. President Trump signed the legislation into law last month.

The budget provided $8.82 billion in funding to the EPA, roughly $4.7 billion above President Trump’s request. EPA’s fiscal 2026 budget still represents a modest decrease compared with last year’s $9.14 billion, though the Energy Star program receives a roughly $1 million increase.

Energy Star was established during President George H.W. Bush’s administration more than three decades ago. In 2021, more than 300 million Energy Star-certified products were purchased, according to the EPA, saving the average household around $450 per year on energy bills.

In April 2025, more than 1,000 companies, cities and organizations sent a letter to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin urging the agency to maintain the Energy Star program. The letter noted that the program’s fiscal 2025 budget of about $32 million, roughly 1 % of the EPA’s total spending, saves American households more than $40 billion annually on energy bills.

-ABC News meteorologist Dan Peck

Despite the Trump administration's goal of defunding key science agencies, departments and programs that are playing a critical role in monitoring weather, climate and space, Congress has largely pushed back on that effort and provided significant funding through the end of the fiscal year.

Budgets for NASA, the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) passed with bipartisan support as Congress largely rejected the steep cuts proposed in the Trump administration.

Despite the Congressional pushback, President Trump signed the legislation after the White House expressed support for the financial package, saying it "avoids a bloated omnibus package and adheres to a fiscally responsible topline agreement that decreases overall discretionary spending.”

Sen. Patty Murray, D‑Wash., vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and ranking member of the Energy and Water Development Subcommittee, said in a statement, "We rejected Trump's plan to slash the funding for scientific research and the National Science Foundation's budget by 57 percent, [cut] NASA's science budget in half, and devastate NOAA and climate research that all of us rely on for accurate weather forecasting—whether we know it or not!”

NOAA, for example, saw its funding remain nearly the same as FY 2025, at $6.17 billion, compared to just under $6.18 billion. That's about $1.67 billion above President Trump's request, which had proposed cutting the agency's budget by about 25 percent.

The funding also addresses staffing concerns at local National Weather Service (NWS) offices, providing additional funding to help them reach full staffing levels, including a $10 million increase to the NWS's primary mission of analyzing, forecasting, and supporting meteorological activities.

The Trump administration's proposed budget called for eliminating NOAA's research division, the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR), and for significant reductions to other key offices, including the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), the world's largest provider of weather and climate data. OAR leads NOAA's weather and climate research and develops many of the forecasting tools meteorologists rely on to produce timely and accurate forecasts.

The cuts would have shut down NOAA's nationwide network of research labs and cooperative institutes, including the Global Systems Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, where the High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) model, a critical tool in modern weather forecasting, was first developed more than a decade ago. The HRRR model helps meteorologists track everything from severe thunderstorms and extreme rainfall to wildfire smoke.

The Global Monitoring Laboratory, also based in Boulder, is another NOAA research lab that would have been affected. It oversees operations at Mauna Loa Observatory on Hawaii's Big Island, which has maintained the world's longest continuous observation of atmospheric carbon dioxide and has been crucial to understanding how human-caused greenhouse gas emissions fuel global warming.

While Congress rejected eliminating NOAA's Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, it approved the administration's recommendation to move three major weather research programs, including the U.S. Weather Research Program (USWRP), from OAR to the National Weather Service. The USWRP is an interagency federal initiative aimed at advancing research to improve forecasts for severe weather and other high‑impact events.

- ABC News meteorologist Dan Peck