2020 Sustainable Energy in America Factbook

The eighth edition of the Sustainable Energy in America Factbook, published in partnership by BloombergNEF (BNEF) and the Business Council for Sustainable Energy (BCSE), was released on February 13, 2020, and is available to download at www.bcse.org/factbook. The Factbook provides updates on industry information and trends for the U.S. energy economy, with an in-depth look at the energy efficiency, natural gas, and renewable energy sectors, as well as emerging areas such as digitalization, micro-grids, offshore wind, hydrogen, and renewable natural gas. 

This year’s Factbook provided a first-of-its-kind overview of the major changes of the past decade in U.S. energy generation, delivery, and consumption, as well as 2019 year-on-year trends.

HIGHLIGHTS:

Lisa Jacobson, President of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy (BCSE), answers three questions about the 2020 Sustainable Energy Factbook

 

Ethan Zindler, Head of Americas, BloombergNEF

• The 2020 Sustainable Energy in America Factbook covers trends in the energy and power sectors over the past decade.
• The economy grew by about 25 percent throughout the decade but total energy use grew by only 6.6 percent, which indicates that the economy has become more efficient in its energy use.
• Trends vary across energy markets in the country, but the percent of energy generated from coal has declined. Natural gas and renewable energy represent a much larger share of energy generation now than at the beginning of the decade.
  • Wind capacity in 2019 was three times higher than in 2009, and solar PV increased by a factor of 80 throughout the decade.
• Most new generation came from renewables and natural gas, with almost no new coal plants opening throughout the decade.
  • The trend of more coal plants closing and few new coal plants replacing them will likely continue into the next decade. Price competition from natural gas and renewables has made new coal projects difficult to finance.
• A growing number of corporations have been signing contracts to procure renewable energy. Technology companies such as Google, AT&T, and Facebook are leading the trend, but oil companies are also signing contracts as a way to offset emissions from the fuels they produce.
  • Over 100 companies have joined the RE100 and committed to using 100 percent renewable energy by 2050 at the latest.
• The United States has cut emissions by about 12 percent since 2005. These cuts represent progress, but there is still much to be done.
  • The power sector has seen the most dramatic decrease in emissions and fell below the transportation sector as the highest-emitting sector around 2015.
• The United States is rapidly decarbonizing the power sector while keeping energy prices internationally competitive, which proves that framing decarbonization as harmful to the economy is incorrect.
  • Consumers will benefit from decarbonization through lower energy costs.
• Prices for renewable energy and battery storage have been steadily declining.
• The use of electric vehicles (EVs) has been increasing, helped by an increase in the number of models for consumers to choose from. At the end of 2019, there were over one million EVs on the road in the United States.

 

Emily Duncan, Director of Federal Government Affairs, National Grid

• Power sector emissions are important, but it is also necessary to reduce emissions from other sectors of the economy, such as transportation, industry, and agriculture.
• More electric vehicles need to be put on the road, and electric vehicles need to become more accessible to all Americans.
• Natural gas, particularly renewable natural gas, plays a role in reducing carbon emissions from the power sector.

 

Shaun Garrison, Director, Congressional Affairs, Government Relations, Solar Energy Industries Association

• The idea that renewables are too expensive to be realistic is not true.
• The 2005 Energy Policy Act helped the solar industry grow by providing tax credits for building capacity. However, those tax credits have started being phased out this year (they will expire in 2022).
• For solar to continue to grow, battery and storage technologies must be developed. This issue could be addressed by creating federal policy around storage.

 

Devin McMackin, Senior Policy Advisor, ITC Holdings Corp.

• Connecting new energy sources requires updates to the electricity grid, which will require investments in energy transmission.
• Policies at the state and federal level need to be aligned.

 

Charles Hernick, Director of Policy and Advocacy, Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions (CRES) Forum

• Clean energy is a good investment. Consumers and the financial sector are beginning to realize this.
• Green bonds and investments in clean energy represent a crossroads between supply and demand: funds are increasingly available to finance clean energy projects that are in high demand.

 

Moderated discussion: Ruth McCormick, Director, Federal and State Policy, Business Council for Sustainable Energy (BCSE)

 

As we look back over the past decade, what has stood out to you the most?

• Duncan: The United States is a “nation of plenty” in terms of clean energy resources, ranging from natural gas to wind and solar.
• Garrison: The growth in the renewable energy sector happened without any major climate policy passing through Congress, so growth without federal action is possible.
• McMackin: Different factors have worked together to change the way we think about the electricity sector. People are seeing the need for the entire economy to be electrified, and a 100 percent electric economy requires a robust centralized grid.
• Hernick: The cost of clean energy. The federal policy of tax incentives worked, and wind and solar have become competitive even without subsidies.

 

What policies do you recommend that Congress enacts?

• Garrison: Investment tax credits, sound climate policies, facilitating the expansion of EVs, and helping Americans understand how clean energy policies benefit them.
• McMackin: The nation should move away from a reactive approach to electricity grid updates and instead work proactively to update infrastructure to facilitate future clean energy projects. Texas took this approach in the 1990s, and it helped them become the state that generates the most energy from wind.
• Hernick: Offer the market certainty in what tax credits will be available, increase competition in energy markets, offer transparency and accountability mechanisms to protect consumers and shareholders when companies make clean energy commitments.
• Duncan: Reinstate tax credits for EVs and energy storage, establish certainty in Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards.

 

Q&A

 

How feasible is the target of net zero emissions by 2050 in the power sector and other sectors?

• Garrison: Right now, it is uncertain. Batteries and storage are necessary for renewable energy, the manufacturing sector will have to look into sequestration, and EVs have to become more attractive to consumers.
• Zindler: We will not reach the target without serious changes in policy. Most projections that predict reaching zero emissions involve some new technology to cut the final 20 percent of emissions, so there is still a need for research and development to find these technologies.

 

How should the cost and availability of energy storage inform research investments? What should research priorities be in the future?

• Zindler: Technology investment should be a “yes, and” approach. We need to invest in getting newly developed technologies to the market and to support existing technologies on the verge of being commercially viable.

 

What impact has the increase in natural gas production had on the cost of hydrocarbons more generally? Has it brought down the cost of oil?

• Zindler: It is difficult to identify all of the impacts of cheap gas. If anything, gas is replacing oil as a method of heating homes, which is decreasing emissions.
• Duncan: Oil to natural gas conversions in households are common. Reaching emissions goals requires conversions to triple, which then requires increases in natural gas infrastructure.

 

What are the major roadblocks inhibiting changes to markets and electricity grids, and how do we get through these roadblocks?

• McMackin: We need a national policy on climate, which would move engineers and planners to get through logjams around grid planning. Paying for these updates is also a roadblock since updates are usually paid for locally and that leads to discrepancies. There should be a national plan to ensure that costs are shared equitably.
• Duncan: We need to think about how low-income consumers will bear the costs of transition.
• Hernick: The simplest solution is to empower individuals to choose what kind of energy they get. Fossil fuel companies are also moving to include sequestration to offset their emissions. Clean energy technology is real, and it will be implemented.

 

Decarbonizing the energy grid is typically associated with increases in cost, but the Factbook suggests that this process will create energy savings. Is this really the case?

• Zindler: So far, decarbonization is coming with energy cost savings. Natural gas is putting pressure on prices, but it will soon be the number one emitter of CO₂. There are real questions about how much gas can be added to the energy sector since there is still a need to reduce emissions significantly.

 

 

Hosted in coordination with:
House and Senate Renewable Energy & Energy Efficiency Caucuses

Sponsored by:
Business Council for Sustainable Energy and Environmental and Energy Study Institute