Amid Record-Breaking Heat This Summer, Solar Energy Rose to the Challenge

This summer wasn’t just hot; it was hot to a record-breaking degree. Amid the warming, however, solar energy provides not just a solution — reducing greenhouse gases — but a salve — providing a more reliable grid and more affordable electricity prices. It was a historic summer for heat, but it was a historic summer for solar, too.

In the continental United States, 2026 saw the warmest June-to-August span in 132 years of record-keeping, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This was also the warmest August on record, with an average temperature of 75.6 degrees Fahrenheit, with daytime maximum temperatures reaching a record-high average of 88.6 degrees, the NOAA added.

Relief from summer heat isn’t exactly in sight either. Climate scientist Zeke Hausfather found in an analysis shared with The Washington Post that there’s about a 95-percent chance that 2027 will rank as Earth’s hottest year on record, as El Niño and climate change could raise global temperatures to around 1.76 degrees Celsius (3.17 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial averages.  

“I’m not sure folks have realized just how crazy the second half of 2026 and 2027 will be for global temperatures,” Hausfather wrote on X.

Amid extreme heat in the United States this July, power demand neared record levels for the PJM Interconnection, the Southwest Power Pool (SPP), and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) grids. Of those three, only ERCOT endured a mid-July heatwave without emergency actions or price increases, and it managed to do so because of its reliance on solar and batteries, Politico reported.  

Solar, wind, and batteries make up 50 percent of ERCOT’s installed capacity, and ERCOT’s highest price on its record-setting day was $364 per megawatt-hour, the site added. SPP, meanwhile, gets 39 percent of its capacity from wind but only has limited solar and storage, and it reached a high price of $700 per megawatt-hour. And the PJM Interconnection, which has one of the nation’s lowest shares of renewables, peaked at more than $2,000 per megawatt-hour.

In the Northeast specifically, 6-plus gigawatts of distributed solar saved ratepayers between $130 million and $149 million in wholesale electricity costs during the heatwave week of June 28 through July 4, an Acadia Center analysis estimated. The analysis also found that distributed solar output surpassed 25 percent of grid demand at times and contributed more to the grid mix during afternoon and evening hours of the peak heatwave day than the region’s nuclear fleet did.

Meanwhile overseas, the heatwaves in Europe in June and July drove up electricity demand, but record solar output helped to meet that increased need during daylight hours, according to an Ember report. Solar production increased 17 percent on heatwave-impacted days during those months, helping to stabilize power grids, the report explained.

These wins for solar under extreme conditions come as photovoltaic technology sets records of its own. In June, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) reported that solar and storage comprised 91 percent of the United States’ grid capacity additions in Q1 2026 and that solar generated more U.S. electricity than coal that May for the first time in U.S. history. And in early September, SEIA joined Wood Mackenzie in releasing a report showing that the solar industry added 11.4 gigawatts direct current (GWdc) of new electricity generating capacity in Q2 2026, marking a 45-percent increase year over year and a 43 percent increase over Q1.  

Furthermore, the report touted, the United States now has the operating solar capacity to power more than 50 million homes in the country, or one-third of households nationwide.

And solar energy isn’t just good for the grid but good for the globe as well. The United Nations reported that renewable energy could decarbonize 90 percent of the world’s power sector by 2050, which would cut carbon emissions “massively” while helping to mitigate climate change. Better yet, the UN said that switching to renewables could save the world up to $4.2 trillion per year by 2030. And the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) explains that solar energy is generated without the emission of heat-trapping and that solar’s life-cycle emissions are a fraction of that of fossil fuel sources. The UCS also cites a National Renewable Energy Laboratory meta-analysis finding that photovoltaics result in 91 percent less carbon dioxide equivalent per unit of electricity than gas and 96 percent less than coal.

Altus Power,a leading commercial scale power company, is part of the United States’ solar transformation with solar projects in 30 states and the District of Columbia, more than 1.3 gigawatts of operating solar assets, more than 450 enterprise customers, and more than 40,000 Community Solar subscribers. Learn more about Altus Power’s commercial solutions and its Community Solar Program.