Just look at what happened last month: Over the course of March, the nation got more electricity from renewables than it did from natural gas, which is typically the single-largest source of energy on the U.S.\u00a0grid.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the first time renewables have bested the fossil fuel in the U.S. across an entire month, per data pulled from the think tank Ember<\/a>. Meanwhile, emissions-free sources, a\u00a0category that includes both renewables and nuclear, produced more than half of the nation\u2019s electricity. It\u2019s just the third time that\u2019s happened across an entire month, the first instance being last March<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sure, renewables only beat gas across a\u00a0short time frame. And, yes, March is the start of the spring shoulder season, when electricity demand falls a\u00a0bit from its winter highs and renewables tend to outperform<\/a>.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s a\u00a0major milestone despite these caveats. Just five years ago, the gap between gas and even the best months for renewables was yawning. Since then, that gap has narrowed, thanks in large part to the rapid expansion of solar and the steady growth of wind power. Hydropower, bioenergy, and other sources of renewable energy have seen their combined share of electricity production slowly decline over the same time period.<\/p>\n Renewables have crossed this threshold amid serious political pushback. The Trump administration has relentlessly attacked the sector \u2014 especially wind<\/a> \u2014 over the last year and change. Its policy shifts are likely to result in fewer new solar and wind farms<\/a> over the medium term, but in the short term, they haven\u2019t really derailed the growth of clean energy. In fact, March was the best-ever month for wind in terms of electricity output.<\/p>\n