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U.S. Power Demand Is Rising, With Solar Covering Much of the Growth. That Changes the Math for Buildings.

Energy & Solar Integration
January 21, 2026•6 min read

By Keith Reynolds

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The U.S. grid is entering a new chapter that real estate owners can feel, even if they've never read an energy report. Electricity demand is rising after years of relative flatness, with solar being the biggest winner in meeting that growth, at least for 2025.

A new analysis from energy think tank Ember found that solar generation met 61% of the increase in U.S. electricity demand in 2025. Solar output rose 83 terawatt-hours (27%), covering most of a 135 terawatt-hour demand increase. That’s a national story, and for commercial real estate owners, developers and planners, it's a price-shape story. More solar supply tends to lower prices when the sun is high and make the most expensive hours more concentrated, which increases the value of flexibility inside the fence line. As a result, the opportunity is no longer only to buy cleaner electrons”, but buy, store and use electricity at smarter times.

Demand is rising — and the drivers look familiar

Demand growth is not happening in a vacuum. The U.S. Energy Information Administration has been warning for months that U.S. electricity consumption is rising again, with much of the growth coming from the commercial sector (including data centers) and the industrial sector (including manufacturing).

That trend is now showing up in official forecasts. In its January Short-Term Energy Outlook, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) projected U.S. power demand would rise from 4,198 billion kWh in 2025 to 4,256 billion kWh in 2026 and 4,364 billion kWh in 2027. It specifically pointed to load growth from data centers (including those supporting AI and crypto), along broader electrification in homes and businesses.

For the built environment, that’s the practical backdrop: more electricity is moving through the same wires, at the same time that tenants and customers are adding new loads for uses like EV charging, electric heating, heat pumps, electrified kitchens, building electrification retrofits, and, in some markets, the “neighbor effect” of nearby large-load projects.

The Ember takeaway: solar is doing the heavy lifting — and batteries are changing when it counts

Ember’s headline result — solar meeting 61% of demand growth — is striking on its own. The implication for owners is more subtle: the grid is increasingly shaped by resources that are plentiful at some hours and scarce at others. Ember’s analysis emphasizes that solar is growing where it is needed, and that the rise of batteries is helping solar show up when it is needed — not just at noon.

Electrek summarized the report exactly how owners should read it: solar did much of the work in meeting rising demand in 2025, and batteries are increasingly the bridge from midday generation to peak needs.

This is the grid’s new operating rhythm, and it pushes building strategy in a clear direction. The winners won’t just be the properties that add electrification, but the ones that control when they draw power, and when they don’t.

The “price-shape” effect: cheaper midday, sharper peaks

Owners don’t buy wholesale power directly in most cases. Still, the shape of the grid finds its way into commercial bills through time-of-use rates, demand charges, riders, capacity costs and negotiated supply contracts.

As solar penetrates the grid, two things tend to happen. First, more supply at midday can mean lower energy prices in those hours, depending on the market and transmission constraints. Additionally, peak hours become more valuable, and more expensive. As the sun sets and people come home, load can remain high while solar output falls. Those ramp hours become where constraints show up first.

That’s why “flexibility” has become a finance term, not just an engineering one. The owner who can shift EV charging to midday, pre-cool a building before the peak window, or shave the month’s highest 15-minute spike can reduce operating expense and protect NOI — even without changing annual kWh much at all.

The EIA frames this in institutional language: Rising demand is spurring expansion in generating capacity and electricity storage, with much of the new capacity concentrated in solar and batteries. That is the macro trend. The CRE move is to mirror it behind the meter.

What this means for CRE: flexibility becomes a building feature

For commercial and multifamily owners, the near-term implication isn’t that everyone must build a solar farm. It’s that the business case for three building-side tools keeps strengthening:

1) Managed EV charging (especially Level 2)

If midday energy is increasingly “cheaper” in many markets, the most straightforward play is to nudge charging into those hours — workplace charging, retail dwell-time charging, and managed residential charging that prioritizes off-peak windows. The goal is not just more ports. It’s predictable load.

2) HVAC and building controls that can shift load

The simplest version is scheduling. The more valuable version is orchestration: a building management system that coordinates HVAC, ventilation, lighting, EV charging and storage so the property can ride through expensive windows without degrading tenant comfort.

3) Behind-the-meter storage as NOI defense

Storage doesn’t have to be enormous to matter. A battery sized to shave peaks — or to cover a predictable ramp hour — can lower demand charges and reduce exposure to volatile peaks. For some portfolios, it also creates resilience value that insurers, lenders and tenants increasingly ask about.

Owners should notice how the national forecasts are evolving: the EIA expects renewable generation’s share to rise from about 24% in 2025 to 28% by 2027, while coal’s share declines and natural gas dips slightly. Whether you view that as climate progress or simply market evolution, it points to the same operational reality. The grid is becoming more dynamic, and dynamic grids reward flexible loads.

A grounded way to explain it to investors and planners

For planners and capital partners, this is a useful reframing. Electrification doesn’t automatically mean higher costs. It's electrification without flexibility that tends to raise peaks and trigger expensive upgrades. In contrast, electrification with flexibility can reduce peak stress, improve economics, and make growth easier to permit.

This is why cities and states are suddenly more interested in demand response, virtual power plants and “bring-your-own-flex” approaches. Even the EIA points to demand response and efficiency programs as part of the reliability tool kit in a higher-demand era.

The bottom line for owners

U.S. electricity demand is rising again, and solar is covering a big share of that growth. That combination is reshaping when electricity is cheapest and when it is most constrained.

For CRE, that is not a reason to pause electrification, but rather a reason to do it with a CFO’s mindset. First, design EV charging for dwell time, not highway mythology. Next, put controls and rate strategy on the same level as hardware. Finally, treat storage as a bill-management tool first, with resilience as a second win.

The grid is changing. The best-positioned properties will change with it — not by consuming more power, but by learning how to consume it better.

Sources and Further Reading:

U.S. power demand 2025rising electricity demandsolar energy growthsolar power U.S.solar impact on power gridsolar adoption commercial buildings
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