The War on Solar

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. Renewables and Carbon Dioxide Emissions

http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/steo/report/renew_co2.cfm

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Renewables and Carbon Dioxide Emissions[/font]

[font size=4]Electricity and Heat Generation from Renewables[/font]

[font size=3]EIA expects total renewables used in the electric power sector to decrease by 2.7% in 2015. Conventional hydropower generation is forecast to decrease by 9.7%, and nonhydropower renewable power generation is forecast to increase by 4.0%. The 2015 decrease in hydropower generation reflects the effects of the California drought. Forecast generation from hydropower in the electric power sector increases by 7.3% in 2016.

EIA expects continued growth in utility-scale solar power generation, which is projected to average 89 gigawatthours per day (GWh/d) in 2016. Because the growth is from a small base, utility-scale solar power averages 0.8% of total U.S. electricity generation in 2016. Although solar growth has historically been concentrated in customer-sited distributed generation installations (rooftop panels), EIA expects utility-scale solar capacity will increase by more than 100% (11 GW) between the end of 2014 and the end of 2016, with 4.4 GW of new capacity being built in California. Other leading states in utility-scale solar capacity include North Carolina and Nevada, which, combined with California, account for almost 70% of the projected utility-scale capacity additions for 2015 and 2016.

Wind capacity, which starts from a significantly larger installed capacity base than solar, grew by 8% in 2014, and is forecast to increase by 13% annually in both 2015 and 2016.

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