We’re awash in stories about the increasing need for electricity to power data centers for artificial intelligence computing. Without that new power, AI is compromised. That’s a problem: AI is credited as the primary driver of future US economic growth, technological breakthroughs and wealth creation in our stock market.
D.C. and redder politicians are adamant all the incremental power for AI computing should come from new natural gas fired power plants and, down the road, from nuclear and geothermal. Trump is waging a war on wind and solar energy. He’s yanking approvals for renewable projects, halting work on nearly completed multibillion-dollar offshore wind farms, and canceling billions in Biden-era clean energy grants. It may therefore come as a surprise that almost all the newly built power generation in the United States in 2025 is utility scale solar, wind and battery farms. According to the attached article from Canary Media, 92% of all new power generation through November 2025 for the US grid was from solar, wind and batteries, taking the US grid from around 1240 Gigawatts of power to 1300 Gigawatts.
The bellwether state of Texas, similarly, added almost all its new power generation from solar, wind and batteries (about 10 Gigawatts) -- with nominal new natural gas fired power. The heavily hyped build out of gas fired power is still in its infancy and will take years to come on line, IF IT DOES AND PROBABLY FAR LATER THAN ENVISIONED. One reason why renewables are dominating is solar/wind/battery farms are continuously mass-manufactured off site and take only a couple months for an on-site installation. Erecting a combined cycle natural gas fired plant takes at least one to two years once the project is ready to go. Locals consistently oppose them as they produce air and water pollution and are far more regulated than renewable projects. Further, although they provide 24/7 power, they are burdened with high operating expenses (labor and the cost of gas) relative to renewables. There’s also concern with the declining costs curves for solar and batteries, that gas just won’t be able to compete on price on a 24/7 basis. To financially justify the initial high capital cost of a gas plant, there’s got to be high confidence they will operate for MANY DECADES at high utilization rates.
The renewable power build out in Texas is set to accelerate: Google announced a month ago that it alone will invest $40 Billion to build 6.2 Gigawatts of solar/wind/battery power to support its new Texas based data centers though 2027. Peak demand on the Texas/ERCOT grid is only around 85 Gigawatts on the hottest summer days, so 6.2 is more than substantial. Google was the best performing stock of the Magnificent Seven in 2025; they must have some clue what they’re doing.
China, like Texas, is on a renewables tear. In 2025, it added approximately 280 Gigawatts of solar power and 100 Gigawatts of wind power. Installations of batteries to store and deploy that power tripled from 2024 to 100 Gigawatts for 2025, while coal/fossil power installations were probably in the 60 Gigawatt range. The total China add for 2025 is in the 400 Gigawatt range, taking the country to 3,700 Gigwatts of total power generation.
Will President Trump cut off his nose to spite his face and hobble the US renewable power that is so essential to his vaunted AI build out?
