Skip to content
Solar and batteries are rapidly forcing gas out of California’s electricity mix, fresh data shows.
Between January 1 and August 17, 2025, solar generation was up 18% compared with the same period a year before, while output from the state’s growing fleet of batteries surged 63%, according to data collated by Stanford University Professor Mark Z. Jacobson.
Batteries charge up on cheap solar power during the day, and now regularly discharge more than 10GW back into the grid during the evening — the time of day that gas peaker plants historically dominated. Storage facilities now meet 28% of all evening peak power demand in the state, according to Ember data (that’s up from just 4% in 2022).
As a result, output from the state’s gas-fired power plants has slumped 25% in one year, and is down 43% in just two years.
All renewable technologies generated enough energy to cover 59% of California’s electricity needs in the calendar year to August 17 (a 5 percentage point increase in a year), while nuclear comprised another 9% of the mix and imports 12%.
According to Jacobson, California is currently on track to be 100% powered by solar, wind, hydro and geothermal by 2033.
