EIA Continues to Lowball Its Renewable Energy Forecast

[kristopher]

This problem goes back at least 15 years and has reached absurd proportions. This is a critical document that policymakers rely heavily on, and it is being produced in a manner that seems deliberately designed to mislead on the progress of alternative energy sources.

EIA Continues to Lowball Its Renewable Energy Forecast

Even a bump from 2013 doesn’t bring it up to most other conservative estimates.

Katherine Tweed
December 18, 2013


Electricity generation from renewable energy, not including hydropower, will tick up from 12 percent to 16 percent, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s 2014 Annual Energy Outlook reference case.

The upward trend seems reasonable until the timeframe is taken into account. The increase of 4 percent is forecasted to occur from 2012 to 2040.



In that timespan, renewables excluding hydropower will account for about 28 percent of the growth in electricity generation. But other government figures would suggest that, at least in coming years, renewables could be a much larger part of the picture.

In October of this year, FERC found renewable energy accounted for nearly 100 percent of all new generation capacity. A 2012 market report from FERC found that wind, and to a lesser extent solar, made up nearly half of the new generation capacity that year...

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/EIA-Continues-to-Lowball-Renewable-Energy-Forecast

[kristopher]

1. Holy Cow, they are doing it with electric drive vehicles too.

Here is a graph of recent sales.

...EIA predicts full hybrids will account for only 5 percent of vehicles in 2040 — up from 3.32 percent today. That's an increase of just 1.5% over the next 26 years?

It predicts just 1 percent of total sales will be plug-in hybrids and 1 percent full electric vehicles in 2040.

...their predictions barely represent reality today, let alone in 25 years time. The DoE's own latest figures show HEV and Plug-Ins already account for 7.5% of car sales... a rise of 3.5% in just the past two years.

The EIA predict 1.5% rise over the next 25 years?.... based on the trajectory of the top line in the chart above, that seems extremely unlikely!

http://www.electric-vehiclenews.com/2013/12/us-energy-information-agency-sees-only.html

[OnlinePoker]

2. The actual EIA report says it goes from 12% to 16% by 2040 "including hydro"

The share of U.S. electricity generation coming from renewable fuels (including conventional hydropower) grows from 12% in 2012 to 16% in 2040 in the AEO2014

http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/er/early_elecgen.cfm

It doesn't say if that includes dams that will be taken offline or completely dismantled as a result of the open rivers initiative.

[cprise]

3. The disconnect here is quite spectacular

It seems like a deliberate attempt to mislead.