A new report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis has found that despite Trump administration efforts to push coal and natural gas, renewables are still gaining market share at a “blistering” pace — especially in Michigan and the Midwest.
That’s particularly true when it comes to solar power. Michigan is served by part of the national grid called the Midwest Independent System Operator, or MISO. The report says that as recently as 2023, solar provided barely 1% of the system’s power.
But energy analyst and report coauthor Dennis Wamsted said that number had grown to 4.5% last year. He says that’s largely due to recent major improvements in battery storage technology that lets utilities capture and distribute renewable power as needed.
“It's like a secret sauce,” Wamsted said. “You put them together and you have a competitor for any kind of coal or natural gas plant, because you now have dispatchable renewable power.”
Wamsted said solar’s growth trajectory in MISO mirrors that of Texas a decade ago. Texas is now the largest solar market in the U.S. Wamsted said MISO won’t necessarily see the same level of explosive growth, but “what it shows is that really fast growth is possible, and you can start to become a very significant part of the grid pretty quickly.”
Wamsted said that Michigan in particular is poised for a continued surge of solar power.
“Michigan is actually going to be one of the leading states for new solar over the next couple of years,” he said, with more than 3,600 new megawatts in the pipeline and scheduled to come online by 2028. That total “is the largest of any state in MISO.”
The growth in renewables “is not just a two-year blip,” the report said. “Fossil fuels’ share of U.S. generation is declining steadily, even as the demand for power increases.”
Wamsted said the data shows that — despite Trump administration efforts to prioritize fossil fuels and revive declining energy sources like coal — utilities increasingly see renewables as both reliable and cost-effective, and their market share will only continue to grow despite the political headwinds. “Nobody’s building new coal-fired power plants,” he said.
