Following 35% growth, solar has passed hydro on US grid

Re:Following 35% growth, solar has passed hydro on US grid by kllrnohj on Wednesday February 25, 2026 @07:05PM (#47159951)

> Even the solar panel market is self defeating. Once there is enough installed power the demand will drop off sharply as the refresh cycle is too long. The feedback loop of capitalism means we are likely to reach that point sooner than you would expect.

No we won't. Even if we waved a magic wand and converted the entire planet to solar today, there would still be new installations tomorrow because energy demand is infinite. There's never enough, we've always used more energy as more energy sources were available.

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Re:Following 35% growth, solar has passed hydro on US grid by ericd on Wednesday February 25, 2026 @08:16PM (#47160533)

That hasn’t really been true in the US in recent decades - efficiency improvements and deindustrialization were balancing increasing population. It’s recently started growing again because EVs, heat pumps, and DCs, but even a 3% increase in demand has caused a lot of growing pains.

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Re:Following 35% growth, solar has passed hydro on US grid by ViewTrick1002 on Thursday February 26, 2026 @02:45AM (#47163123)

We have a finite demand at a certain price point before running out of productive use cases.

Renewables lower the price, enabling use cases which fossil fuels were too expensive to support.

We are in for an incredibly interesting ride as we for the first time in generations lower the price floor for energy globally.

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