9 ms·

Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026

• jqpabc123 5mo ago
  Renewable energy offers a competitive advantage for any energy intensive activity --- like manufacturing or AI. China gets it, the USA doesn't.
  • cloche 5mo ago
    Even so, the article says it grew 8% YOY in the US. The best is to hope that this is an unstoppable trend so that even politicians won't be able to reverse it.
    • ceejayoz 5mo ago
      Never underestimate the capacity of shitty people to shoot themselves and others in the foot.
    • adjejmxbdjdn 5mo ago
      Imagine how much faster it would be growing if the U.S. government wasn’t paying companies billions to not produce wind energy https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/23/climate/offshore-wind-gas-trump-total.html?searchResultPosition=2 https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/23/climate/offshore-wind-gas... or delaying standard approvals https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/climate/wind-solar-projects.html?searchResultPosition=9 https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/climate/wind-solar-projec...
      • wat10000 5mo ago
        Or forcing unprofitable coal power plants to remain operating against their owners' wishes. https://www.energy.gov/documents/doe-order-no-202-26-19-schahfer https://www.energy.gov/documents/doe-order-no-202-26-19-scha...
    • willio58 5mo ago
      It’s already irreversible, but it’s just disappointing to see how the U.S. administration has chosen to actively fight against it, while other countries like China are embracing reality. It’s actually funny if you don’t think about it too hard. The U.S. president is trying to make us more reliant on fossil fuels, while starting a war in Iran that’s led to the global fossil fuel market to be negatively impacted, forcing most Americans to pay more for fossil fuels. Who could have seen that coming? We’re doing great!
      • mrhottakes 5mo ago
        "No One Could Have Predicted This!" - Nation where this happens all the time
      • dnautics 5mo ago
        > the U.S. administration has chosen to actively fight against it the biggest producer of renewables is Texas, by a longshot. and the state of california just created insane NEM laws that favor the pockets of pg&e (and are shit for the environment) and as a result solar home installations have cratered.
        • ceejayoz 5mo ago
          > the biggest producer of renewables is Texas That doesn't refute the point at all.
          • dnautics 5mo ago
            no, but renewables do speak for themselves in dollars and cents, even if they dont have subsidy. now should petrochem subsidies end too? probably yes.
            • ceejayoz 5mo ago
              > renewables do speak for themselves in dollars and cents Yes. But administration opposition can change that math, as they have with the tariffs.
    • jqpabc123 5mo ago
      Even so, the article says it grew 8% YOY in the US. Versus 35% YOY in China. China gets it, the USA doesn't. The best is to hope that this is an unstoppable trend The trend is the USA choosing politics over reality as China becomes unstoppable. https://carboncredits.com/china-adds-power-7x-more-than-the-us-in-2025-with-500b-energy-build-out-in-a-single-year/ https://carboncredits.com/china-adds-power-7x-more-than-the-...
      • cmrdporcupine 5mo ago
        The US isn't choosing "politics" It's "choosing" short term profits because its leadership (and its voters) have given up on long term stable trade and planning, and instead embraced oligarchy and rentier capitalism. You can't parasitize solar and wind. There's few to no middlemen. No way to monopolize it. So it must be discouraged while you extract the last few years of wealth out of the assets you already control.
  • SirFatty 5mo ago
    Spoken with such authority!
  • ReptileMan 5mo ago
    Indeed. Steel mills, aluminum smelters and glass factories really adore the intermittent nature of renewables.
    • Danox 5mo ago
      Germany screwed themselves.
      • uecker 5mo ago
        The world screwed itself by not investing in renewables earlier. Germany paid a high price for being early, but we all should be thankful for Germany creating an economy of scale and bringing cost down. And while the extreme right wing propaganda claims that Germany is doomed because of the Energiewende for the last 20 years or so, it is somehow still the third largest economy.
    • ZeroGravitas 5mo ago
      Smelters in Australia are leaning on the fossil-friendly politicians to stop getting in the way of renewables because they can't compete with global prices unless they use renewables.
      • jqpabc123 5mo ago
        Unlike in the USA --- they obviously look beyond the rhetoric to grasp the fact that renewables help lower energy costs even if their industry doesn't fully depend on them.
    • jqpabc123 5mo ago
      Yes, that probably explains why US imports of steel and aluminum continue to grow, even with a 25% tariff. US manufacturers and consumers just love the added cost --- aka, inflation. https://www.steel.org/2026/03/steel-imports-up-4-6-in-january-2026-vs-december-2025/ https://www.steel.org/2026/03/steel-imports-up-4-6-in-januar...
  • kieranmaine 5mo ago
    The USA get's it. Trump doesn't. Texas is a the leader in wind and solar in the US. Compare generation stats for yesterday between 2021 and 2026 on the Texas grid (ERCOT) * 2021 - https://www.gridstatus.io/live/ercot?date=2021-06-03 https://www.gridstatus.io/live/ercot?date=2021-06-03 * 2026 - https://www.gridstatus.io/live/ercot?date=2026-06-03 https://www.gridstatus.io/live/ercot?date=2026-06-03 Also, the Californian grid (CAISO) shows where everyone is headed with a huge deployment of batteries: * 2021 - https://www.gridstatus.io/live/caiso?date=2021-06-03 https://www.gridstatus.io/live/caiso?date=2021-06-03 * 2026 - https://www.gridstatus.io/live/caiso?date=2026-06-03 https://www.gridstatus.io/live/caiso?date=2026-06-03
    • yogthos 5mo ago
      All of that combined is peanuts compared to what's happening in China. Not to mention that all the panels and most of the wind turbines are produced in China. It's not just a question of installing them, it's having the industry and technical know how to make them that really matters. https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/global-electricity-review-2026/major-countries-and-regions https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/global-electricity-...
    • jimt1234 5mo ago
      Does the USA really get it? I'd like to believe that, but honestly, I hear a lot of hatin' on anything related to renewable or 'green' energy, not just from Trump.
      • kieranmaine 5mo ago
        My earlier comment was too ambiguous. Those that spend money on generating capacity in the US get it. > As of April 1, 2026, renewable energy’s share of total US utility-scale (>1 MW) generating capacity was 33.6%. EIA projects this to grow to 36.6% by March 31, 2027. Utility-scale solar will add 42,626.1 MW, expanding its share from 12.8% to 15.7%, while wind will grow by 14,157.4 MW (including 4,155.0 MW of offshore wind), increasing from 13.0% to 13.6%. The mix of other renewables (hydropower, biomass, and geothermal) will add 297.1 MW. > The capacity of battery storage was 42 GW at the end of 2025 and is expected to double and reach 85 GW by the end of 2027. In terms of the general population or politicians, some more than others. This is also with an administration that is irrationally hostile to renewables. 1. https://electrek.co/2026/05/26/renewables-installed-capacity-to-beat-natural-gas-by-2027-eia-data/ https://electrek.co/2026/05/26/renewables-installed-capacity...
  • wolfhumble 5mo ago
    Good China numbers, but I’d still keep two things in mind. China is moving very fast on clean power. But total energy is still very fossil-heavy, about 78%: 51.4% coal, about 26.9% other fossil fuels, calculated as the remaining share after coal and non-fossil, and 21.7% non-fossil in 2025, based on official Chinese figures. The U.S. is about 82% fossil overall, so roughly comparable to China’s ~78%, just in a different way. Much less coal now, around 8%, but a lot of oil and gas: petroleum about 38%, natural gas about 36%, according to EIA’s 2024 summary. For electricity, China was around 11% solar and 11% wind in 2025, according to China’s 2025 Statistical Communiqué. The U.S. was around 9% solar, including rooftop and other small-scale solar, and around 10% wind in 2025, according to EIA. Nuclear is a major difference in the electricity mix: about 18% of U.S. electricity generation versus roughly 5% in China, based on EIA and China’s 2025 Statistical Communiqué. And yes, EIA is not a typo for IEA EIA is the U.S. Energy Information Administration, whereas IEA is the International Energy Agency.
• greekrich92 5mo ago
  Solar and progress on better batteries is a more consequential and useful technological revolution than AI. Should be a huge story, but there's not enough money to be made via speculation so it's not.
  • toomuchtodo 5mo ago
    Nailed it. Solar, wind, and batteries are going to be the predominant form of generation in a decade, but there is no speculative benefit, so it’ll happen silently.
    • ajross 5mo ago
      To be fair (and, somewhat ironically, rationally detached libertarian) that's the way it's supposed to be. We don't develop and deploy technology to make a bunch of too-online nerds rich. We develop and deploy technology to make everyone's lives better by providing goods at lower expense and lower externalized cost.
      • toomuchtodo 5mo ago
        Indeed, but wouldn't it be great if all of this capital pouring into the AI bubble went into global electrification and clean energy instead? Ah well, we'll get there eventually. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/installed-solar-pv-capacity https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/installed-solar-pv-capaci... https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/wind-generation https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/wind-generation https://ourworldindata.org/renewable-energy https://ourworldindata.org/renewable-energy https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix https://electrek.co/2026/02/23/texas-is-about-to-overtake-california-in-battery-storage/ https://electrek.co/2026/02/23/texas-is-about-to-overtake-ca... https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/battery-storage-is-now-cheap-enough-to-unleash-indias-full-solar-potential/ https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/battery-storage-is-... https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/germanys-solar-installations-drop-while-new-battery-storage-hits-record https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/germanys-solar-installa...
  • feelamee 5mo ago
• deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
• erelong 5mo ago
  I know some people who are adamantly against solar and wind (personally I like both but I can see some shortcomings - for example I have heard that ai datacenters are using gas at times because of its flexibility) So what are some of the best talking points to "sell" solar and wind to the unconvinced? Or will they just adopt it once it's seen everywhere?
  • mrhottakes 5mo ago
    If people have strong opinions about renewable energy, just don't waste your breath. You can't reason someone out of an opinion they arrived at unreasonably.
    • jahnu 5mo ago
      Keep hammering the point that they are cheaper. If they are open to more advanced discussion point to the amazing structural changes that batteries are only starting to bring. Tell them something that sounds mildly like science fiction but is in fact happening already and will be HUGE. E.g. the battery you’ll have in your AC/stove/car will save you money or even make you money when part of a smart mesh of DERs. Maybe I’m too optimistic :)
      • mrhottakes 5mo ago
        "It's cheaper" is a good route, but a lot of these people have decided they don't care about objective facts in favor of what their favorite media personality says.
      • WarmWash 5mo ago
        Let me preface this that I am a huge advocate for renewables, and have been spending borderline unreasonable amounts on turning my home green. The rub with "solar is cheaper" is that those values are almost always calculated using an ideal environment. Solar is cheapest when you are using flat barren land in Arizona where an acre costs $500, the sun shines 330 days a year, you are bulk buying 750 MW of panels, and the bureaucracy is a single rubber stamp. Those are the numbers that ultimately trickle to headlines. Things get much more complicated (read: expensive), when you are in the North East, an acre costs $12,000, the sun shines 170 days a year, you're bulk buying a few dozen MW of panels, and the bureaucracy is 6 different government bodies full of permits and assessments. In that situation, a gas plant that produces 10x more power on 10x less land becomes very appealing to people who are already getting crushed by soaring electricity bills. (My take: we're just going to have to deal with higher costs). So I am all with you on abandoning fossil fuels, but to someone who is firmly in gas camp, they will have legitimate ground to stand on when balking at costs. "It's cheaper" is unfortunately not all encompassing.
• chris_money202 5mo ago
  Finally some good news!
• baggachipz 5mo ago
  Great news. Now let's surpass coal, the far more insidious and prevalent source!
  • deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
• Danox 5mo ago
  How is that working for German industry where you need dense energy if you are going to continue build anything big..
  • ceejayoz 5mo ago
    Believe it or not, a large solar field (or several!) can readily densify its energy into a nice small power transmission line.
  • blackjack_ 5mo ago
    Multiple ways. One interesting one is huge sand batteries that are being heated up to massive temps, then having pipes run through there to collect the heat energy as hot water and doing the industrial processes that way. Another way is using excess green energy to produce green hydrogen, which can be used as a fuel source in very high energy scenarios. Past that, we recently have made electric arc furnaces and electric smelting furnaces for steel and aluminum, and several of these are fully solar powered. It’s a shift to change the energy source for industrial production, but we have the technology and the ability. And the sun is free!
  • dudefeliciano 5mo ago
    pretty well? and it can only get better if we continue rolling out renewables?
  • unglaublich 5mo ago
    You turn the machines on when electricity is cheap, and turn em off when it's not? Folks operating businesses that depend on oil prices would know these tricks?
  • micromacrofoot 5mo ago
    when energy is abundant, you use it to hoist a large rock very high up above your head when energy is scarce, you drop the rock on your head
  • gaiagraphia 5mo ago
    Surely households using more wind and solar frees up capacity for 'dense energy' though?
• fleroviumna 5mo ago
  [dead]
• yogthos 5mo ago
  China having managed to position itself as the main driver of the green transition by investing into key industries illustrates the power of state planning. The markets simply can't operate on horizons of decades because there is no immediate profit to be had. You need long term planning and sustained investment that only a state is able to provide.
• tonymet 5mo ago
  *electricity . Gas is heavily used for heating , cooking & industrial uses (e.g. drying agriculture like hops, boilers etc). I raise this point since policymakers get confused and try to ban gas, only to realize how critical gas is for food & industrial applications that consumers enjoy after the fact.
  • PaulDavisThe1st 5mo ago
    You're correct that this ought to say "electricity" and not "power". But I think you're wrong to think that gas is "critical" to any of the things you've listed. "Currently used" ... yes. "Not replaceable by electricity" ... no (unlike, e.g. air travel).
    • tonymet 5mo ago
      explain the cost to replace a hop drying kiln with an electrical one, including the grid load.
      • PaulDavisThe1st 5mo ago
        I'm not going to do that. Electrical heat using heat pumps is cheaper than in-situ heating with any fossil fuel because (a) the base price per unit of energy is (or certainly can be) lower (b) the coefficient of performance is higher. There are obviously costs to changing heating systems. But that doesn't mean that a gas heating system cannot be replaced by an electrical one.
        • tonymet 5mo ago
          to me, it sounds unreasonable. Let’s say this project was your responsibility, would this argument be enough for your supervisor to approve it?
          • PaulDavisThe1st 5mo ago
            I'm not aware of anyone saying "we must replace all uses of non-electrical heat pump-based heating with an electrical version". My point, in response to the GGP (?) was the while e.g. gas heating may be in use now, it is not irreplaceable. This is quite different (right now, at least) for something like air transportation, where there is no feasible electrical solution. There is no "project" under discussion.
• philipkglass 5mo ago
  More good news from Ember, according to their Global Electricity Review 2026 [1]: Solar power increased by a record 636 TWh to reach 2,778 TWh in 2025, a 30% increase from 2024. Wind saw the second-largest increase, growing 205 TWh (+8.2%) Driven by record solar growth, low-carbon power generation increased by 887 TWh in 2025, outpacing electricity demand growth of 849 TWh. Solar power alone met 75% of the net increase in electricity demand. Together with wind, the two sources met almost all (99%) demand growth. For the first time in 100 years, renewables (33.8%, 10,730 TWh) overtook coal power (33.0%, 10,476 TWh) in the global electricity mix as continued rapid growth in solar and wind pushed the share of renewables above a third of global generation. Coal power dropped 63 TWh (-0.6%) in 2025, marking the first fall since the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Combined with continued electricity demand growth, this meant coal fell below a third of global generation for the first time in history. For comparison, I have collated information from the International Atomic Energy Agency's Power Reactor Information System. The fastest that nuclear power generation ever grew was 213 TWh added in 1985. Since the year 2000, the fastest growth year was 2004, with 111 TWh added. [1] https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2026/04/Global-Electricity-Review-2026.pdf https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2026/04/Global-Electric...
• mtmickush 5mo ago
  This is exciting news but the term power here should really be replaced with electricity which is clarified early on in the article. Electricity only accounts for roughly 20-25% of all power / energy used and the vast majority of the remaining 75% is fueled by gas (cars, ships, heating, construction, ect.)
  • Tade0 5mo ago
    That is true, but a lot of that, if replaced by electricity, would use considerably less energy overall, so it's not a 1:1 comparison. Residential heating in particular would use anywhere between a third to half the energy, if we only transitioned to heat pumps.
  • nielsole 5mo ago
    Important to consider that your stat is likely comparing primary energy, not secondary energy. E.g. an electric car or a heat pump use less primary energy than the fossil equivalent.
  • Wacari 5mo ago
    no. if you work in the industry you'll know power/electricity are used interchangeably, and energy is treated as the superset. in the physics sense, you're right.
  • ZeroGravitas 5mo ago
    And roughly 2/3rds of that is lost as waste heat, so really only another 25% is actually useful.
    • marcosdumay 5mo ago
      If you don't look at electricity generation, yes. If you look at grid generators, that fraction can get as low as 1/3. (But then, it can get higher than 3/4 on transportation.) So it really depends on who is counting and how. I do think transportation and heating use more energy than the grid, but I was never able to get a definitive number. (My best guess is it's close to 2 times larger.) Also, electricity to transportation conversion is usually only around 80% efficient. Making electricity portable has a cost.
• citrin_ru 5mo ago
  It's a good news but I didn't expect that coal is still on the 1st place and not really trending down. I though coal was largely replaced by gas years ago...
  • fsh 5mo ago
    Coal is much cheaper than gas.
    • usefulcat 5mo ago
      Is it cheaper per MW of generated power? I thought that the main reason use of gas has increased so much (for power generation) over the past 20-30 years is that gas became cheaper.
      • throwaway473825 5mo ago
        It depends on the region. The US has shale gas which is genuinely cheaper than coal. Europe doesn't want to use coal for political reasons. China and India barely use gas since it can't compete with coal.
    • citrin_ru 5mo ago
      Gas allows to use combined cycle gas turbines (CCGT) which is more efficient and it makes gas cheaper for electricity generation.
      • throwaway473825 5mo ago
        That's still not enough to bridge the gap between coal and gas. See for example this article: https://www.ffe.de/en/publications/merit-order-shifts-and-their-impact-on-the-electricity-price/ https://www.ffe.de/en/publications/merit-order-shifts-and-th... The US is an anomaly due to shale gas: https://energyathaas.wordpress.com/2026/05/11/how-much-has-shale-gas-saved-u-s-consumers/ https://energyathaas.wordpress.com/2026/05/11/how-much-has-s...
• _whiteCaps_ 5mo ago
  I just upgraded the solar system at my family's off-grid cabin. It's incredible how much battery technology has improved over the last 10 years. Everyone is getting tired of me checking the panel to see how many watts we're bringing in. Next project, install a shunt and get a Raspberry Pi talking to it over USB. And then I'll be able to build a Grafana dashboard. :)
  • nonethewiser 5mo ago
    Where is the cabin? Roughly speaking of course
    • _whiteCaps_ 5mo ago
      The "Sunshine" Coast of BC. Right now we're limited by the charging capacity of the inverter/charger. It can only do 50A in from an external solar controller. In hindsight I should have gone with a 48V inverter/charger to get twice the power going in. On a sunny day we're maxing it out at 1200W for several hours at a time.
      • dghughes 5mo ago
        Hi, from the other coast. I wish I had solar maybe someday. Do you ever watch Artisan Electric from the UK? He tried to run his shop on 100% solar+battery. He ran into a problem where sunny day batteries full shop using power but the panels themselves were throttling. They had no where to send the extra power. He bought a bitcoin floor heater (lol), charged EVs, and some other stuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evkdqTcMbWM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evkdqTcMbWM
        • jvanderbot 5mo ago
          Yeah that's the point. Most systems are over producing on peak hours of peak days so they can average out to enough power on lower light days. You can buy more batteries, but if you don't have batteries it's waste.
  • 5mo ago
• nailer 5mo ago
  I feel the energy conversation is dominated by people that don't realize how far Solar tech has come recently arguing with other people that don't realize short nuclear half lives have gotten recently.
• jauntywundrkind 5mo ago
  Also worth looking at recent Australia events, where evening peaking is incredibly severe. But batteries have been carrying the entire load! Incredible gobsmacking amount of stored energy on display here. Great to see. https://bsky.app/profile/neilgrant.bsky.social/post/3mneo3toxn22c https://bsky.app/profile/neilgrant.bsky.social/post/3mneo3to...
• jmyeet 5mo ago
  The percentage increases here don't really tell the full picture. Look at it in terms of pure TWh [1]. China just dwarfs any other country in terms of wind and solar deployment. I guess that's the difference between putting engineers in charge instead of those who believe in the magical powers of red heifers [2]. One of the short-term issues in the US is going to be that a lot of utilities depend on natural gas and natural gas prices are going to keep rising beyond whatever happens in the Persian Gulf because of increased LNG exports (that directly raises domestic prices) and the increased use of gas turbines for AI data centers. Plus all the consumers are going to pay for the infrastructure buildout for electricity for those data centers. So, despite a large Y/Y solar increase in the US, electricity prices are only going up. [1]: https://www.statista.com/chart/36117/electricity-generated-by-solar-power-by-country/ https://www.statista.com/chart/36117/electricity-generated-b... [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48393661 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48393661
• nonethewiser 5mo ago
  Is it possible to increase the grid by add solar and wind and NOT adding an on-demand backup source (gas, etc.) WITHOUT ADDING RISK? What I mean is say the grid demands 100. The grid is powered entirely by coal. You give it 120 for 20% redundancy. This is extremely reliable. The grid demand is now 120. You now need 144 for 20% redundancy. You dont want to use coal. So you add solar and batteries. Batteries are great because they normalize the volatility of solar generation over time, but they do not make solar truly on demand. So if you add 24 solar to the 120 coal you are increasing the risk on the grid. What often happens is you add 24 solar but you have 24 coal as a backup. Ideally the real-world use will be solar but in case of downtime your grid will not fail.
  • toomuchtodo 5mo ago
    Take a look at California. Their grid is routinely, daily, generating ~84% of its power from renewables [1] (with ~25GW of existing solar PV capacity, ~6GW of wind, and ~6GW of hydro). They are adding batteries rapidly [2] (with a goal of 52GW by 2045; they are 33% of the way there). They still have ~32GW of fossil gas generation capacity, but it is rarely used constantly at full capacity. They have plans for another ~21GW of solar PV on land that can no longer be farmed due to water shortages [3] [4] (enabling families to keep their land with long term lease payments). Not everywhere is California, but solar and batteries are the cheapest form of generation in 90%+ of the world [5]. You simply keep building more solar collection, storage, transmission, etc. to orchestrate collecting this "fusion at a distance" and distributing it to loads. The sun rises every day, and will for our lifetimes. We continue to deploy batteries and solar at manufacturing capacity, while continuing to increase manufacturing capacity year over year. You fill any gaps with fossil generation until there are no longer any gaps to fill [6]. Tangentially, Australia is currently testing a battery with a 8 hour discharge capability [7] ("Long-Duration Energy Storage (LDES)"), as they are rapidly preparing for a network/team of battery storage facilities to assume grid health responsibility from their retiring thermal coal generators [8]. Certainly there is much work ahead in understanding and developing longer duration energy storage systems. [1] https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/US-CAL-CISO/live/fifteen_minutes https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/US-CAL-CISO/live/fi... [2] https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/california-electricity-data/california-energy-storage-system-survey https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/califo... [3] 21GW of Solar for California Land That Can No Longer Be Used for Agriculture - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46488648 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46488648 - January 2026 [4] https://valleycleaninfrastructureplan.com/ https://valleycleaninfrastructureplan.com/ [5] Solar electricity every hour of every day is here and it changes everything - https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/solar-electricity-every-hour-of-every-day-is-here-and-it-changes-everything/ https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/solar-electricity-e... - June 21st, 2025 [6] Renewables reached nearly 50% of global electricity capacity last year - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47615756 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47615756 - April 2026 (149 comments) [7] https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/australias-first-8-hour-battery-064000354.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/australias-first... [8] https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/files/initiatives/engineering-framework/2022/engineering-roadmap-to-100-per-cent-renewables.pdf https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/files/initiatives/engineerin... (think in systems)
• singingtoday 5mo ago
  Progress! Build more, we need it..
• thewhitetulip 5mo ago
  I am waiting for balcony solar to hit it off just like rooftop solar.. a few installers flat out refused to install on my balcony! I want to feed the balcony solar o/p back to the grid and not have a off grid system Meanwhile I bought a 25W solar panel and a controller and am going to make a solar charger to charge my powerbanks
• ck2 5mo ago
  meanwhile Trump administration just bypassed Congress (again) to give nearly a billion dollars to sustain COAL industry the spite is the point (do we survive past 2029? are you sure? I'm not) https://www.investing.com/news/economy-news/trump-to-invoke-emergency-powers-for-700m-coal-industry-funding-93CH-4727153 https://www.investing.com/news/economy-news/trump-to-invoke-...
• scope2093 5mo ago
  We installed roof solar (10kW panels + 8kW hybrid inverter + 32kWh battery + planning/execution) last October for 11k euro. After all the math, our "investment" would pay off in approx 8-10 years (at current electricity prices). That's without an electric car, which we plan to buy sometime in the next two years. All in all, pretty happy. Especially that we have frequent grid faults. Even my ISP has some beefy batteries for their equipment, so much so that one 14-hour grid blackout didn't affect us at all and we were able to use the internet since we're working from home (FTTH + ONT, GPON). Usual disclaimer, sample size of one. We're in Romania.
  • jrmg 5mo ago
    Getting solar installed on our house, providing well over 100% of our energy needs overall (including car), has left me low-key kind of angry that we, as a society, are letting so much energy just uselessly fall onto structures and the ground when we could be harvesting and using it. Especially in the US, and especially in homes, we tend to have dark roofs. Sunlight falls on these, heating the building up, then we burn fossil fuels to generate more energy to pump the heat outside. It’s absurd.
    • scope2093 5mo ago
      I agree. The momentum seems to be building up though, at least in (east) Europe, so there is a glimpse of hope. Fun fact: we still don't have AC in our house (it's a new-ish building, built 4 years ago) because it's decently insulated (and we live near the mountains). As in your case, our solar produces way over 100% of what we need, so I'm considering just getting AC to use the sun to cool the house if needed :)
      • DanielHB 5mo ago
        I live in Sweden and there is very heavy insulation, however it makes it unbearable at the end of the summer days (sunset around midnight). I am lucky my current place the bedrooms get the morning sun, not the afternoon sun like my old place. In my old place I would often sleep in the living room sofa because of the heat.
• iQoxi 5mo ago
  Interesting how sustainability is shifting from a regulatory topic to a competitive advantage for businesses.
• didgetmaster 5mo ago
  On the graph, you can clearly see the seasonal demand for power during the summer months as air conditioning kicks in. The electricity production for gas mimics this as well each year. But the solar output does not seem to have a spike each summer. Why is that? You would think that solar output would be significantly higher when the summer months are here.
  • miahi 5mo ago
    It's global data, "here" is not US, and it's solar+wind, not only solar. Summer months have a different definition depending on hemisphere and solar production maximums depend heavily on latitude.
• sleight42 5mo ago
  Waiting for this to get flagged because, once again, the US sucks. A lot of us know why the US is behind in wind and solar. It's because of a five letter word that starts with "T". Do better, America.
  • DaSHacka 5mo ago
    I fail to see how locomotives have anything to do with this conversation
• jrmg 5mo ago
  Meanwhile, just hours ago: Trump Offers Funds for First New U.S. Coal Plants in 13 Years https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/04/climate/trump-coal-plants-funding.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/04/climate/trump-coal-plants...
• fuckinpuppers 5mo ago
  “Hold my [polluted] beer” - current US administration
• nutifafa 5mo ago
  this is certainly true but sustainability and usability are two bifurcating routes. solar and wind is the energy system we need but oild and gas is what's affordable.
• deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]