solar poised – For the first time, solar is expected to generate more electricity than coal on ERCOT—the power market that runs Texas—surging as new solar builds outpace coal. The shift challenges long-running claims from the Trump administration that coal is more reliable,
The Texas sun is doing what politicians have insisted it can’t.
In 2026. solar is set to generate more electricity than coal in the power market managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. The change is stark: the federal government expects ERCOT to receive 78 billion kilowatt-hours from solar in 2026. compared with 60 billion kilowatt-hours from coal. Texas is not building new coal plants, but developers are adding more solar there than anywhere else in the country.
The head-to-head race has its rhythm. Last year, solar output beat coal on a monthly basis from March through August, and this year it is expected to do so from March through December, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration at the Department of Energy.
The implication lands harder in a state that isn’t usually held up as a climate poster child. While solar is moving fast on the Texas grid. other places—especially liberal states that have set lofty climate goals—have committed to targets without building much solar or batteries. Nationally. the direction has already flipped: the combination of wind and solar surpassed coal generation in 2024. as noted in an analysis by Ember. a think tank that conducts research on clean energy.
Those developments collide with the energy story being promoted by the Trump administration. Federal efforts have attempted to boost coal and gas as tools of “energy dominance. ” while blocking or canceling American energy from renewables. The Department of Energy, for instance, is keeping struggling coal plants on life support at great expense to taxpayers. At the same time, the Department of the Interior is blocking wind and solar developments that intersect with public lands.
Officials in Washington have argued that coal is more reliable than solar because it can generate power around the clock. But Texas’ grid is already showing how that advantage doesn’t translate into keeping coal dominant in actual output totals. Even with coal’s supposed edge in continuous generation. coal plants in Texas can’t keep up with the total annual and monthly production from the rapidly growing solar fleet.
Grid reliability hasn’t cracked under the weight of that mismatch. ERCOT meets evening demand with a diverse portfolio that includes gas plants, nuclear, wind, and—more and more—batteries. Those batteries store excess solar power for use when the sun stops shining.
Texas didn’t set out to disprove the administration’s energy claims. The state kept its electricity system out of the hands of federal regulators. and in the 1990s and early 2000s reformed it to promote free market competition instead of centralized planning by monopoly utilities. That market—along with lots of space and lax building regulations—created an environment where wind. solar. and batteries could flourish. The result is a system now fortified with tens of gigawatts of new capacity. built to tackle heat waves and temper price spikes.
After the next wave of rapid-fire solar additions, the numbers are expected to accelerate further. The U.S. Energy Information Administration expects ERCOT will produce 99 billion kilowatt-hours of solar power in 2027, up 27% from 2026. By then, the analysis projects the solar industry will have left its coal competition in the dust.
The broader lesson for places that have struggled to turn climate promises into built infrastructure is clear in the timeline Texas is already living. They can’t immediately switch over to an ERCOT-style market. but they can speed up the time it takes to get permits and grid connection. dial back the level of deference to habitually conservative legacy utilities. and make sure clean energy gets a fair shot in the race to serve surging energy needs. It’s also a chance to reexamine old market rules that can quietly privilege entrenched players while new entrants—often offering cheaper and cleaner power—are still waiting for their turn.
Texas ERCOT solar coal electricity U.S. Energy Information Administration Department of Energy Department of the Interior climate policy batteries renewable energy Trump administration