You’d Really Miss Renewables This Winter If They Weren’t Available

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Solar and wind power have a lot going for them. They ease global warming stress and its climate consequences. They don’t cost as fossil fuels at utility scale, and they’re a lot less harmful to people’s health than fossil fuels. Of all of these reasons to favor solar and wind and other renewables, though, their price savings are, realistically, the most powerful motivators for everyday consumers. And renewables this winter are helping to keep down what would otherwise be unbearable utility costs for many consumers.

Of course, it must be said that renewable-heavy electricity markets in the winter months have different needs than in the warmer season. In winter, if the grid becomes short of clean electricity, markets quickly rely on higher cost resources, and prices can swing sharply, writes Elena Bou, co-founder at InnoEnergy.

One reason for this strong price volatility is the structure of electricity markets themselves, Bou explains, which “are set by the marginal unit needed to meet demand. In practice this means that typically the last (and most expensive) generator dispatched determines the price.” So, as long as renewables are available, prices tend to stay low. But when renewable output drops, the system turns to higher-cost fossil power plants to bridge the gap, and prices climb rapidly.

But there are ways that renewables this winter could add more energy to the mix. There’s offshore wind, which offers an affordable way to protect grid reliability. Last winter, for example, in the absence of offshore wind, grid operator ISO New England had to resort to extremely expensive winter reliability programs to make sure that energy supply could keep up with demand during cold snaps. Those programs cost close to $1 billion over the past three winters. A study released in September 2025 showed that offshore wind power would generate massive savings during high-demand periods, lower New England electricity prices by 11%, and deliver $400 million in wholesale market savings in just three winter months.

New clean tech is also helping consumers to offset winter home utility costs. Take heat pumps  — those clever cooling-and-warming electrical devices — which provide heated air in the winter and cool air in the summer. They’re far more efficient than conventional heat sources, delivering three to four times more heat per dollar spent than oil- or gas-fired heating equipment or old fashioned electric baseboard heat.

The Global Embrace of Renewables this Winter

Falling prices of renewables have made them so appealing that more than 90% of all electricity-generating capacity added worldwide in 2024 came from clean energy sources, according to data from the International Renewable Energy Agency. The IEA has already identified 107 countries that have reduced their dependence on fossil fuel imports for electricity generation, and the deployment of renewables (not hydropower, though) had a big part in it. Of these, 38 had cut their reliance on electricity from imported coal and gas by more than 10 percentage points and eight had seen that share drop by more than 30 percentage points. Renewables “inherently strengthen energy supply security,” according to the IEA report, because they generate electricity domestically, while also improving economic resilience in fossil fuel importer countries.

So why aren’t we seeing more renewables this winter across the US? Regulatory roadblocks are a result of political impasses, which slow investment in renewable energy deployments. Paul Krugman wrote earlier this month that “it’s likely that few Americans realize just how marginal the United States has become in the global renewable energy revolution and how badly we continue to lag behind.” The fiscal reality across the globe is that a full scale transformation of energy systems will move from being currently cost-competitive to taking the fiscal leadership place in global power markets.

Weaker deployments of renewables this winter would be a byproduct of President Donald J. Trump’s promise to Big Oil for a quid-pro-quo — all they had to do was monetarily support his 2024 election bid. He’s making good on that offer, and consumers now pay twice as a result: once for the actual cost of the fuel itself — a cost that has risen 46% since 2019 —  and then for the billions of dollars Big Oil gets through special subsidies and tax breaks.

Those exceptions “are ballooning under Trump,” says former secretary of labor, Robert Reich. “These handouts don’t go toward lowering prices for us. They help boost oil and gas companies’ profits — at the expense of your wallet and our planet. All told, Big Oil already extracts about $35 billion a year from the federal budget in direct industry-specific tax breaks and subsidies.”

Silicon Valley has a lion’s share of the blame if renewables this winter don’t have a chance to live up to their potential. Aaron Zamost writes in an opinion piece in the New York Times that “tech now looks a lot like finance: power without accountability, and profit without purpose.” Tech encourages investment and increases adoption of and trust in new products, Zamost elaborates, so that, “when tech is the villain instead of the hero, the future feels leaderless.” If tech moguls like Bill Gates aren’t fully endorsing clean energy deployment, then financial institutions are less likely to take the first step. Tech billionaires know that the cheapest way to power their newest toy, AI, is through renewable energy.

Since the beginning of Trump 2.0, financial institutions have been distancing themselves from the traditional framing of climate finance. But now they’re caught in a bind: they need to turn to renewable energy for growth in artificial intelligence and energy security. Some in the finance industry are finding alternative ways to act in its own economic interest, Lisa Sachs, head of Columbia University’s Center on Sustainable Investment, told Bloomberg. The politics and the “framing” of issues “doesn’t change their assessment of financial risk,” she said. In fact, financiers are keenly aware that speeding up electrification and adding renewables has the potential to slash $19 trillion from fuel costs by mid-century.

There’s other interesting news about corporations that are beginning to distance their policies from Trump. For instance, JPMorgan Chase’s CEO Jamie Dimon has hesitated to donate to Trump’s White House remodeling. “We’re quite conscious of risks we bear,” he revealed, and he limits any Chase actions that looks like they’re buying favors.

Is the Republic sheen on All-of-the-Above Energy flaking off? As Heather Cox Richardson reported this week, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican, recently joined California governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, in speaking out against the Trump administration’s plan to offer up to 34 offshore drilling leases off the coasts of Alaska, California, and Florida.

Then again, market forces continue to suppress reports about the reality of climate change. Zillow, the country’s largest real estate listings site, has deleted its notification about risks from extreme weather — events like a home’s risk from floods, wildfires, wind, extreme heat, and poor air quality. Real estate agents and some homeowners worried that the scores didn’t represent a home’s full climate picture and hurt sales. Capitalism has long arms.

Resources

• “I worked all over Silicon Valley. This is how it lost its spine.” Aaron Zamost. New York Times. November 12, 2025.
• Letters from an American. Heather Cox Richardson. November 29, 2025.
• “New report: Offshore wind would have lowered electricity prices 11% last winter.” National Resources Council of Maine. September 4, 2025.
• “Record-breaking annual growth in renewable power capacity.” International Renewable Energy Agency. March 26, 2025.
• “Renewables 2025: Analysis and forecasts to 2030.” IEA. October 7, 2025.
• “The domestic politics and geopolitics of renewable energy, part I.” Paul Krugman. Substack. November 2, 2025.
• “The price you’ll pay when renewables go missing: Electricity market volatility.” Elena Bou. Forbes. November 28, 2025.
• “Wall Street is turning climate finance into an energy security pitch.” Alistair Marsh. Bloomberg. September 25, 2025.
• “We’re paying Big Oil to kill the Earth.” Robert Reich. Substack. September 9, 2025.
• “Zillow removes climate risk scores from home listings.” Claire Brown. New York Times. November 30, 2025.