How much of US electricity comes from solar?

Solar made 6.7% of US electricity in 2025, up from 0.6% in 2015 and 2.2% in 2020; before 2012 it was under a tenth of a percent. The chart counts only utility-scale solar plants, not rooftop panels, and the 2025 figures are preliminary.

The interactive chart needs JavaScript. The numbers are in the table below.

The value axis starts at zero. Hover, tap or use the arrow keys to read exact values.

Save a simple drawing of this chart for slides, essays or posts, with its question, source, date and a link back to this page. Please keep the credit.

Download image

Key facts

Measure: Share of US electricity generation (%). Written from the data below.

  • The latest figure, for 2025, is 6.7%.
  • That is up 6.7 percentage points from 0% in 1949.
  • It is the highest in the data, which go back to 1949.
  • The lowest was 0%, first reached in 1949.

Source and date

Source
U.S. Energy Information Administration, Monthly Energy Review (Table 7.2a)
License
Public domain (U.S. government work)
Data as of
Published

Citation

Chartly. “How much of US electricity comes from solar?” Chart. Data: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Monthly Energy Review (Table 7.2a), https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/ (data as of December 31, 2025). https://chart.ly/charts/solar-share-of-us-electricity (accessed October 15, 2026).

Free for your article, blog or class page: paste this code where the chart should go. It shows the interactive chart with its source and a small “Chart by Chartly” credit, and stays up to date when the data changes.

The data

Download data (CSV)

The file has the numbers in this table, with the source, license and date. Please credit the source and Chartly.

Year Share of US electricity generation (%)
1949 0
1950 0
1951 0
1952 0
1953 0
1954 0
1955 0
1956 0
1957 0
1958 0
1959 0
1960 0
1961 0
1962 0
1963 0
1964 0
1965 0
1966 0
1967 0
1968 0
1969 0
1970 0
1971 0
1972 0
1973 0
1974 0
1975 0
1976 0
1977 0
1978 0
1979 0
1980 0
1981 0
1982 0
1983 0
1984 0
1985 0
1986 0
1987 0
1988 0
1989 0
1990 0
1991 0
1992 0
1993 0
1994 0
1995 0
1996 0
1997 0
1998 0
1999 0
2000 0
2001 0
2002 0
2003 0
2004 0
2005 0
2006 0
2007 0
2008 0
2009 0
2010 0
2011 0
2012 0.1
2013 0.2
2014 0.4
2015 0.6
2016 0.9
2017 1.3
2018 1.5
2019 1.7
2020 2.2
2021 2.8
2022 3.4
2023 4
2024 5.1
2025 6.7

Get new charts weekly

One email a week with the newest charts and their key numbers. No account needed.