A new report documents the democratization of renewables,
energy storage and electric vehicles in America.
It was 1997, and stakeholders were working hard to help
craft the first renewable energy standard in the State of Massachusetts, which
ultimately passed as part of an electric utility restructuring act. At that
time, the notion that Massachusetts would be one of the top solar states in the
country was almost laughable, recalls Rob Sargent, who currently leads the
energy program at Environment America.
Today, renewable energy is taking off in virtually every
state in the nation.
A new report and interactive map released this week by
Environment America takes stock of U.S. clean energy progress to date. It finds
that leadership is no longer concentrated in select parts of the country, but
that it is distributed across states with varying economic and democratic
makeups.
“You’re seeing an evolution that’s happening everywhere; and
it will be interesting to see what will happen 10 years from now,” Sargent
said.
The Renewables on the Rise report highlights how much has
changed in a relatively short period of time, which can be easy to forget.
Today, the U.S. produces nearly six times as much renewable
electricity from the sun and the wind as it did in 2008, and nine states now
get more than 20 percent of their electricity from renewables.
Last year, the U.S. produced a record amount of solar power,
generating 39 times more solar power than a decade ago. In 2008, solar produced
0.05 percent of electricity in the U.S. But by the end of 2017, solar
generation reached more than 2 percent of the electricity mix — enough to
power 7 million average American homes.
Wind has also seen dramatic growth over the last decade.
From 2008 through 2017, American wind energy generation grew nearly fivefold.
Last year, wind turbines produced 6.9 percent of America’s electricity, enough
to power nearly 24 million homes. And the forecast shows even more growth as
America’s offshore wind industry begins to take off.
Meanwhile, the average American uses nearly 8 percent less
energy today than a decade ago, thanks in large part to energy efficiency
improvements.
The U.S. transportation fleet is also transforming. Last
year, all-electric vehicles broke past 100,000 annual sales for the first time,
with 104,000 units sold. As recently as 2010, the number of EVs on American
roads numbered in the hundreds, even including plug-in hybrid vehicles. Now
there are more than 20 pure-electric models on the market, ranging from
affordable commuter cars to ultra-fast luxury vehicles.
On the energy storage front, nine of the 10 states that have
added the most battery storage capacity to date had zero utility-scale battery
capacity in 2008. California, Illinois and Texas are among the battery storage
state leaders. In one benchmarking development, a bid to build
solar-plus-storage in Arizona beat
out competing bids for new natural-gas peaker plants.
The report leverages data from the U.S. Energy Information
Administration, the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, the Auto
Alliance and the Solar Energy Industries Association, among others.
Thanks to policies like the renewable portfolio standard
Sargent and others helped to pass, the report shows Massachusetts saw 247-fold
growth in solar generation over the last decade, with an increase from 10
gigawatt-hours in 2008 to 2,554 gigawatt-hours in 2017. Massachusetts is now a
top 10 state for solar growth.
California is the clear U.S. solar leader, but solar market
expansion isn't limited to politically progressive states. Georgia, for
instance, is also on the top 10 list. The Southern state produced just 1
gigawatt-hour of solar in 2008. A decade later, Georgia generated 2,364
gigawatt-hours of solar — just shy of the production in solar-incentive-friendly
Massachusetts.
In other parts of the country — and Texas, Oklahoma,
Kansas, Iowa and North Dakota in particular — strong wind resources have
made wind power the predominant renewable energy source.
Announcements such as Xcel
Colorado’s proposal to retire two coal plants and deploy 1,800
megawatts of solar and wind, paired with 275 megawatts of battery storage,
and NV
Energy’s plan to build more than 1,000 megawatts of new solar and 100
megawatts of battery storage, seem to indicate the U.S. clean energy boom will
continue.
But that’s not a guarantee. Distributed energy resources are
facing pushback as utilities figure out how to integrate and manage new
technologies on the grid. Large-scale renewables are also coping with
opposition as these resources compete head-to-head against conventional energy
sources, including coal, nuclear and even natural gas.
“People are starting to notice that renewables are
happening, but they still think of it as a niche part of our energy mix —
and it is a small fraction of it,” Sargent said. “But if renewable energy keeps
growing at the rate it's grown over the past 10 years, the notion that you
could meet all our current electricity needs with renewable energy is not that
far-fetched.”
Getting all the way to 100 percent renewable energy is
controversial, though, both technically and politically. Even in California,
where there’s widespread support for renewables, a 100 percent renewable energy
proposal failed in
the state legislature last year. And while the bill (SB 100) is now moving through the legislature once more,
lawmakers have had to loosen up the language around “100 percent renewable
energy” to also include “eligible zero-carbon resources.”
Still, Sargent is generally optimistic about the future.
“There are very, very few places where someone adopts a
clean energy policy and then says, ‘That was stupid; let's get rid of it,’” he
said. “Partly because once you do it at scale, it’s cheaper. Also because
people see it and like it and want more of it — there’s growing public
acceptance of it.”
The challenge he sees is that while clean energy is growing
substantially in states across the nation, there will ultimately need to be
some form leadership at the top, at the federal level — which he said doesn’t
exist right now.
“It’s frustrating to have one foot on the accelerator and
one on the brake,” Sargent said. “We’d go a lot faster if we weren’t doing
that.”
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