The US Is Building More Clean Energy Than Ever. 5.87 Billion People Have No Idea.

The United States will add 86 gigawatts of new power capacity this year — nearly double last year's total. Solar, wind, and batteries account for 79% of it. By December, renewable energy capacity will surpass natural gas for the first time in American history.

And 5.87 billion people have no idea this is happening.

This story scored 8.04 on the Albis Global Attention Index, making it one of today's most invisible stories worldwide. Only US-based outlets are covering it. Europe, the Middle East, Asia-Pacific, South Asia, Africa, and Latin America — six regions representing the vast majority of the global population — are seeing none of it.

The Numbers Behind the Quiet Revolution

The Energy Information Administration's latest data tells a story that contradicts almost every political narrative about American energy.

In 2025, renewables produced 25.7% of all US electricity, up from 24.1% the year before. Wind alone generated 10.3% of the national total. Solar — utility-scale and rooftop combined — hit nearly 9%, up from 6.9% in 2024. Together, wind and solar produced 15.7% more electricity than coal and 8.7% more than nuclear.

The 2026 projections are even more dramatic. Developers plan to install 43.4 gigawatts of utility-scale solar this year, a 60% jump from 2025. Wind capacity additions will more than double, from 5.5 gigawatts to 11.8 gigawatts. Battery storage will grow another 57%, adding 24 gigawatts after a record-shattering 57.6 gigawatt-hours of new storage went live in 2025.

When plant retirements are factored in, fossil fuel capacity will actually shrink by 4,211 megawatts this year. No new nuclear capacity is planned. Every single megawatt of net new American generating capacity in 2026 will come from renewables and batteries.

Renewables Surpass Gas — A Historic Crossover

The milestone buried in EIA's forecast deserves its own headline: by the end of 2026, total US renewable capacity will reach 525,356 megawatts, overtaking natural gas at 514,213 megawatts.

A decade ago, renewables represented roughly 5% of installed capacity. By year's end, they'll hit 40%.

This isn't happening because of government mandates. More than 90% of new renewable projects are driven by economics — solar and battery costs have fallen so steeply that they undercut every alternative. Solar panel prices dropped 89% between 2009 and 2019, and they've kept falling. An entire utility-scale solar system now costs around $1 per watt, less than half what the solar module alone cost a decade ago.

The Political Paradox

Here's where the story gets interesting — and perhaps why it's invisible outside the US.

This clean energy boom is happening under a president who revoked the EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gases on February 12, called climate science into question, and made "energy dominance" through fossil fuels a centrepiece of his agenda. The administration stripped the endangerment finding — the bedrock legal basis for federal climate regulation since 2009.

Yet the buildout accelerates. Texas, the country's oil capital, leads the nation with 40% of planned solar installations and 53% of new battery storage. The states installing the most clean energy are overwhelmingly red. Eighty percent of Inflation Reduction Act clean energy investments have landed in Republican-held congressional districts, creating over 109,000 jobs across 40 states.

The market doesn't care about the political rhetoric. Solar and wind are simply cheaper.

Why the World Should Be Watching

The invisibility of this story matters because the US energy transition has global consequences — especially right now.

With oil above $100 a barrel and the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed, the Iran war has turned energy independence from a climate talking point into a national security imperative. John Kerry told The Guardian last week that the crisis mirrors the 1970s oil embargo, which "resulted in a speed up of the transition to finding other sources of energy."

The Center for Strategic and International Studies argues countries should see "new strategic impetus in building out endogenous generating capacity — renewables in the near term, nuclear power over time." Carbon Brief reports that rising fossil fuel prices have "prompted some leaders to recommit to boosting their energy sovereignty through the deployment of renewables."

For Asia-Pacific nations importing 59% of their crude from the Middle East, the US buildout offers a proof of concept: a country can add 86 gigawatts of clean capacity in a single year while its government actively promotes fossil fuels. The technology works. The economics work. The only question is speed.

For Europe, where gas prices spiked after Russia's invasion of Ukraine and are spiking again now, the American data confirms what their own transition showed: once renewables reach critical mass, the buildout becomes self-reinforcing.

For Africa and South Asia — regions that missed 88-90% of all global news stories yesterday — the US example demonstrates that energy sovereignty doesn't require massive fossil fuel reserves. It requires panels, batteries, and sunlight.

What Happens Next

The EIA projections are forecasts, not guarantees. Supply chain disruptions from the Iran war could delay equipment shipments. Tariffs on Chinese solar components remain a wildcard. Grid interconnection queues — the bureaucratic bottleneck where new projects wait to plug in — are already years long in some regions.

But the trajectory is clear. In 2025, renewable capacity grew by 55,809 megawatts while fossil fuels and nuclear combined grew by 773. That's a 72-to-1 ratio. Even if 2026 underperforms projections, the crossover with natural gas is a matter of when, not if.

The world's largest economy is rewiring itself — and most of the world can't see it happening.

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This story was identified by the Albis Global Attention Index — measuring which stories the world isn't seeing. Explore today's blind spots →