The United States saw continued growth in renewable energy, natural gas and energy efficiency in 2014, according to the third annual Sustainable Energy in America Factbook. The 2015 Factbook prepared by Bloomberg New Energy Finance for the Business Council for Sustainable Energy shows that U.S. deployment of sustainable energy increased as prices continued to fall and that investment in U.S. clean energy grew at a higher rate.
“The U.S. energy transformation that began a decade ago continued in 2014,” said Lisa Jacobson, president of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy. The Sustainable Energy in America Factbook chronicles this fast-moving transformation, which is creating whole new industries and thousands of new jobs. The Factbook demonstrates that the diverse portfolio of clean energy options can provide affordable and reliable power to homes and businesses throughout the country.”
Bloomberg found that “over the 2007-2014 period, U.S. carbon emissions from the energy sector dropped 9 percent, U.S. natural gas production rose 25 percent and total U.S. investment in clean energy (renewables and advanced grid, storage and electrified transport technologies) reached $386 billion.”
“The 2015 Factbook clearly shows that America is on the path to a more sustainable energy sector,” said Jacobson. “Our energy productivity is rising along with economic growth, while energy-intensive industries are onshoring production to the United States to take advantage of low energy costs. All of this is happening as investment in clean energy continues to grow and as new natural gas infrastructure continues to come online.”
These developments, and others, bode positively for America’s economy and environment.
For example, the research revealed that the U.S. economy is becoming more energy productive, with “an outright decoupling between electricity growth and economic growth.” Between 1990 and 2007, electricity demand grew at an annual rate of 1.9 percent while, between 2007 and 2014, annualized electricity demand growth has been zero. Meanwhile, over those past seven years, the U.S. economy has grown by 8 percent.
In the U.S. power sector, the contribution of renewable energy (including large hydropower projects) to electricity has risen from 8.3 percent in 2007 to an estimated 12.9 percent in 2014, and production and consumption of natural gas hitting record highs in 2014. Since 2000, the Factbook shows, 93 percent of new power capacity built in the United States has come from natural gas and renewable energy.
Investment in U.S. clean energy is up again with $35-65 billion of investment each year since 2007. Overall U.S. investment in clean energy totaled $51.8 billion in 2014 — a 7 percent increase from 2013 levels.
Renewable energy and energy efficiency are making significant strides across several metrics in 2014. The Factbook reports that renewables represent 205 gigawatts (GW) of installed capacity across the country. Wind and solar are the fastest-growing technologies, having more than tripled since 2008. Hydropower remains the largest renewable energy source at 79 GW, with biomass, geothermal and waste-to-energy representing another 17 GW but limited in new build by a lack of long-term policy certainty.
Further, wind and solar is reaching grid parity in multiple regions, according to the report. In 2014, wind developers secured power purchase agreements (PPA) with utilities below the levelized cost of electricity for fossil-fired power and below the price of wholesale power in the Midwest, Southwest and Texas. Solar providers were also able to offer PPAs or leases to homeowners below the residential retail electricity price, reaching “socket parity,” while utility-scale solar plants in Texas and Utah secured PPAs at some of the lowest prices ever recorded globally ($50-55 per megawatt-hour).
The Pacific and New England regions made the greatest strides in energy efficiency, the report points out, while the Southeast and Southwest regions have the greatest opportunities to increase efficiency. Across the United States, commercial buildings have showed the greatest progress on energy efficiency over the last several years.
While the United States is clearly heading toward more use of sustainable energy, the Factbook did show deviations from the larger trend. These include an increase of coal’s share in U.S. electricity generation from 37 percent in 2012 to an estimated 39 percent in 2013 and 2014; an increase in carbon emissions from the U.S. energy sector of around 3 percent since 2012; and a slowdown in utilities’ and states’ adoption of energy efficiency.
Policy will play a central role in determining where the U.S. energy mix heads in 2015 and beyond. State, federal and international policies, including the EPA’s Clean Power Plan regulation on existing power plants; the global climate negotiations scheduled in Paris this fall; and federal and state-level support for renewables, efficiency and natural gas development, will all help determine the speed with which the trend toward sustainable energy develops in 2015.
“The Factbook rightly points out that the continued growth in residential, commercial and utility-scale solar has helped to diversify our nation’s energy portfolio, improve grid stability, save money and create new jobs across the nation,” said Rhone Resch, CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA). “This tremendous growth, including 20 percent more jobs in 2014 than the year before and 50 percent more added solar capacity nationwide, is due largely to smart, successful public policies such as the solar Investment Tax Credit, Net Energy Metering and Renewable Portfolio Standards. ”
Source: Fierceenergy.com