Some fear that intermittent renewable energy from the sun, the wind, water pressure, and geothermal steam can’t reliably keep pace with rapidly growing energy demands without redundant fossil fuel generation unless battery storage and transmission technologies advance.
Renewable energy sources—solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, hydro—constitute nearly 95 percent of that added capacity and now generate more than 21 percent of the nation’s electricity, eclipsing coal as a source last year, the EIA said.
The agency projects that U.S. power plants will produce 2 percent more electricity during the second half of 2024 than in 2023, with solar power adding 36 billion kilowatt-hours, a 42 percent increase over the new solar power added in all of 2023.
With the additions, the sun now generates nearly 4 percent of utility-scale electricity and powers 7 percent of the nation’s homes, the EIA said, citing solar energy as the nation’s “fastest-growing U.S. source” of electricity generation.
The Washington-based Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), which didn’t respond to requests for comment from The Epoch Times, maintains that renewable energies are poised to dramatically accelerate, especially solar power.
“This milestone comes just eight years after the U.S. reached 1 million installations in 2016,” SEIA said in a statement, noting that it took more than 40 years to get to 1 million installations after the first one came online in 1973.
SEIA, which represents 1,200 companies engaged in the $60 billion solar energy industry, maintains that solar power plants in the United States will double to 10 million by 2030 and triple to 15 million by 2034.
Sunny Prospects
Among the proposed solar projects being permitted is the largest ever planned in North America.
Eight of the nine solar projects are in Nevada, and seven of these are part of the Esmeralda 7 Solar Project, located on 118 BLM-managed acres, 30 miles west of Tonopah, about halfway between Las Vegas and Reno.
If approved, the seven projects would generate up to 6.2 GW, enough to power 1.6 million homes, making it the largest single-site solar generator in North America. The contiguous installations will each have a battery electric storage system of at least 500 megawatts (MW).
The Department of Interior notes there are an additional 70 utility-scale renewable energy projects in BLM’s permitting pipeline on public lands that could generate another 32 GW. The bureau is also initiating preliminary reviews of 166 solar and wind development projects and more than 40 applications for site testing, it said.
Renewable energies are emphasized in the Department of Energy’s proposed $51.4 billion fiscal year 2025 budget with little accommodation for fossil fuels.
The proposed spending plan earmarks $10.6 billion for clean energy programs, including $502 million for vehicle technologies, $318 million for solar, $280 million for bioenergy, $199 million for wind, and $179 million for hydrogen.
Storm Clouds on Horizon
While there are a growing number of proposals and a quickening pace of approvals, solar power—and renewables, overall—can’t keep pace with the United States’ growing demand for electricity, especially if fossil fuel-powered plants are removed before being replaced, utility and transmission system operators have said during House and Senate hearings.
Utilities and operators fear a disconnect between projected demand and the federal government’s power plant rules, liquified natural gas (LNG) export pause, public lands leasing policies, and near-total budgetary exclusion of fossil fuels, which generate 60 percent of the nation’s electricity.
The new EPA rules require coal plants to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 90 percent by 2039 or to be closed. There are about 200 coal-burning power plants that generate about 16 percent of the nation’s electricity that could be retired under the rule.
During a May 21 Senate Natural Resources Committee hearing, Chair Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) said the renewable proposals and approvals won’t keep the lights on if the grid isn’t upgraded fast enough to transmit the new power.
The retiring two-term senator noted that U.S. utilities have removed more than 100 GW of coal-fired electric power since 2021, while 2.6 million MW is “waiting an average of five years to connect” to the grid.
FERC Commissioner Mark Christie warned the House Energy, Climate, and Grid Security Subcommittee during a July 24 hearing that “the United States is heading for potentially catastrophic consequences in terms of the reliability of our electric power system” because, without fossil fuels, there will be costly and time-consuming gaps when there is no solar power being supplied to the grid.
“The core threat is two-fold,” he said, noting that skyrocketing demand is not being matched “on the power supply side“ where ”the supply problem is not the addition of intermittent resources such as wind and solar, but the far too rapid subtraction of dispatchable resources, especially coal and gas.”
