2024 Sustainable Energy in America Factbook

Hosted in coordination with the House and Senate Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Caucuses, the Conservative Climate Caucus, and the Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition.

The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) and the Business Council for Sustainable Energy (BCSE) held a briefing about the 12th edition of the Sustainable Energy in America Factbook. The Factbook provides valuable year-over-year data and insights on the U.S. energy transformation, with an in-depth look at the energy efficiency, renewable energy, and natural gas sectors, as well as transmission, digitalization, micro-grids, offshore wind, hydrogen, renewable natural gas, and more.

Panelists explored the impact of supply chain trends as well as permitting and siting processes on U.S. clean energy deployment. They also highlighted investment figures resulting from the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.

The Factbook, published by BloombergNEF and BCSE, launched on February 21, and is available to download for free at www.bcse.org/factbook. 

Highlights

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The 2024 Sustainable Energy in America Factbook finds that the clean energy economy is thriving, in part due to strong policy frameworks. Overall U.S. greenhouse gas emissions declined 1.8% in 2023 compared to 2022. Also in 2023, $1.5 trillion was invested in low-carbon or clean technologies and practices around the world. The United States made record-breaking investments, with a total of $300 billion going into the clean energy transition. Clean energy manufacturing is creating high-paying, blue collar jobs throughout the United States.

 

Lisa Jacobson, President, Business Council for Sustainable Energy (BCSE)

• The Business Council for Sustainable Energy (BCSE) commissions the Sustainable Energy in America Factbook each year to provide pertinent economic, technological, and environmental information to industry, stakeholders, and decisionmakers.
• The 2024 Factbook, featuring 2023 data, reveals several trends and macroeconomic challenges. The analysis found that businesses continue to be impacted by high interest rates, supply chain challenges hampered energy infrastructure deployment, and many businesses are still recovering from COVID-19 era conditions.
• Despite these obstacles, the Sustainable Energy in America Factbook finds that the clean energy economy is thriving, in part due to strong policy frameworks.
• Many impactful and successful policies from the last five years have been bipartisan, including the Energy Act of 2020 (P.L. 116-260), the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 (IIJA) (P.L. 117-58), and the Chips and Science Act of 2022 (P.L. 117-167).
• The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) (P.L. 117-169) incentivizes investment in the energy sector in part via tax policies that have received bipartisan support for almost 30 years. It is important to keep advancing these policies because they help communities and enable modern, affordable, and critical energy services in the United States.
• The United States is highly efficient and clean in producing, delivering, and consuming energy. The United States is spearheading new energy technologies that are in high demand globally. By strengthening the domestic energy economy, the United States becomes more internationally competitive.

 

Tara Narayanan, Lead Analyst, North America Regional Trends, BloombergNEF

• The world is breaking records for decarbonization every year, and it is imperative that this continues to be the case.
• Some COVID-19 disruptions have subsided and no longer impact climate assessments. For example, the prices of commodities that underpin energy sharply surged in 2020, and it was not until 2023 that prices began to lower again. Not all COVID-19 impacts have faded. For example, interest rates were still rising in 2023.
• The impacts of other disruptive events are lessening. For example, the price of natural gas spiked in 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine, but in 2023 prices began to fall again.
• With the prices of energy commodities spiking and easing, the cost of power and wholesale electricity fluctuates, too.
• After the worst of the pandemic, there was a rebound in the United States in 2021 and 2022, during which time greenhouse gas emissions as a whole went up. In 2023, overall greenhouse gas emissions declined 1.8% compared to 2022, and the United States resumed its pre-pandemic reductions trajectory.
• Most greenhouse gas emissions are produced by three sectors: power, transportation, and industry.
• In 2023, $1.5 trillion was invested in low-carbon or clean technologies and practices around the world. The United States made record-breaking investments, with a total of $300 billion going into the clean energy transition.
• Contextualizing emissions data is important; breaking records one year is not enough. Every country must continue to push towards decarbonization and the energy transition.
• The power sector used to be the largest source of emissions in the United States, but now is the most rapidly decarbonizing sector of the overall economy. Emissions from the power sector have decreased about 40% compared to 2005 levels. The power sector is also deploying a record amount of renewable energy.
• In 2023, only 16% of U.S. electricity supply came from coal, the lowest share ever. It is important to decrease the use of coal even further and faster because burning coal the most carbon-intensive energy resource.
• Coal usage is declining faster than what power plant owners projected they would keep online until 2030 when asked in 2018. Since 2018, the expected deployment of coal has been consistently higher than the actual deployment of coal.
• Natural gas has replaced coal in the power sector. The United States is steadily increasing its production, consumption, and exportation of natural gas. The United States must turn its attention to natural gas because little thought has been put into reducing its carbon emissions, which are significant even though they are lower than those of coal.
• In the transportation sector, electric vehicles contribute significantly to emission reductions. Falling manufacturing costs and consumer tax credits have helped increase electric vehicle sales by 50% year-on-year. More automakers are expanding their electric vehicle offerings, which creates more options for consumers.
• Nevertheless, transportation emissions have increased year-on-year, even though increases in gasoline prices and remote employment have caused many individuals to reduce their driving. Overall miles driven have increased significantly from pandemic lows.
• Industry is the most difficult sector to decarbonize. The IRA has impacted this sector significantly by spurring investment in decarbonization. Without the IRA, investments in clean hydrogen and carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) would have taken years to materialize. Shipments of electrolyzers, which produce hydrogen through electrolysis, have increased. CCS technologies have been announced as a part of projects, even in sectors that had no interest in CCS before the IRA.
• Many states are announcing investments and projects that take advantage of tax credits focused on supply chain domestication. Solar energy and batteries represented the most projects announced so far, and many battery projects are paired with electric vehicle manufacturing facilities. 

 

Helen Walter-Terrinoni, Director of Global Climate Policy, Trane Technologies

• An increasing number of jurisdictions are adopting stricter energy efficiency requirements in building codes, which leads to reduced energy consumption in both the commercial and residential sectors.
• Implementation of building codes varies dramatically across jurisdictions, with some areas using outdated energy efficiency standards to set codes while others use newer updates. A few jurisdictions have moved to performance-based standards, which base requirements on the total energy consumption of the building rather than specific features.
• Stricter building codes can reduce energy costs and save money for building owners.
• Reducing energy consumption in buildings is a crucial part of sustainability so efficiency requirements are critical.

 

Ali McGuigan, Manager, Government Relations, National Grid

• National Grid plans to decarbonize its gas and electric networks to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Its goal is to provide clean, reliable, and affordable energy.
• National Grid uses integrated energy planning to decarbonize its network. It plans to rely mostly on electrification to eliminate carbon emissions, but for certain gas customers, National Grid is exploring renewable natural gas, hydrogen, geothermal, and energy efficiency, among other technologies.
• National Grid has announced a $4 billion investment in New York, the Upstate Upgrade, which will fund 70 electric grid projects and create thousands of jobs. These are primarily transmission projects that will increase grid capacity, enhance energy resilience to extreme weather, and ensure the ability to connect renewable energy to the grid.
• The Future Grid Plan is an electric-sector modernization plan that invests $2 billion in Massachusetts’s electricity distribution grid and promotes electrification and distributed energy resources. It will expand system capacity by three gigawatts by 2035 and enable more than 31.3 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emission reductions.

 

Biljana Kaumaya, Head of Federal Affairs, American Clean Power

• In a time when overall U.S. manufacturing has been losing jobs, the clean energy industry is rapidly creating new manufacturing jobs. Federal policies creating tax credits and free buybacks have helped enable this.
• S. clean energy capacity is rapidly increasing. In the field of solar, the United States currently has seven gigawatts of annual domestic solar module production capacity. Once all announced domestic solar facilities come online this number will reach 217 gigawatts, 16 times more than current capacity.
• Clean energy manufacturing is creating high-paying, blue collar jobs throughout the United States.

 

Charles Bolden, Senior Director of Congressional Affairs, Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA)

• 2023 was a record year for the solar industry with nearly 35 gigawatts of power installed. Residential, commercial, and utility market segments all set records for the year, and the community solar market segment just narrowly missed a record.
• Over 13 gigawatts of solar were installed in the fourth quarter of 2023 alone, the same amount that was installed in all of 2019.
• Solar represented more than half of all new electric capacity connections to the grid in 2023. This was the first time in 80 years, since hydrogen in the 1940s, that a renewable energy source had surpassed 50% of new connections.
• Legislative and regulatory trade actions in 2022 caused significant supply chain disruptions resulting in many delayed projects and cancellations. In early 2023, module supply stabilized and delayed projects were able to move forward. While the bulk of growth came from the utilities segment, residential and commercial markets set records as well.
• Increased demand from California boosted both residential and commercial markets. In part, this boom was caused by a change in net-metering laws. Customers were scrambling to place solar projects under contract before new net-billing rules set in.
• Deployment on the solar manufacturing side rose from eight gigawatts to 16 gigawatts over 2023, exemplifying the benefits the IRA has created for the solar industry.
• SEIA expects 2024 to be another record year for the solar industry. Utility-scale pipelines continue to be strong, and while residential markets will be impacted by changing California policies, the IRA has incentivized consumer growth elsewhere.

 

Heather Reams, President, Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions (CRES) Forum

• The factbook shows many positive trends. Coal use is decreasing, while alternatives like nuclear power and renewable energy are rising. More efficient energy storage is also coming on line. Natural gas still needs to be addressed due to the associated greenhouse gas emissions, but overall emissions are decreasing.
• Energy produced in America tends to have fewer emissions associated with it than energy produced in many other parts of the world, so onshoring energy production is good for everyone.

 

Q&A

 

Q: What challenges and opportunities for the clean energy transition do you anticipate in the next few years?

Walter-Terrinoni

• Most of the technologies needed to meet 2030 emission reduction goals are commercially available today, so the primary issue is uptake. One of the challenges will be to encourage a transition to the most energy efficient of these new technologies to ensure the maximum benefit.

McGuigan

• Utilities need collaboration from governments and regulators to make the investments necessary for grid decarbonization.
• The United States will need more transmission capacity and more interregional transmission in order to achieve decarbonization goals.

Kaumaya

• Permitting reform is essential for the clean energy transition. On average, it takes 10 years to build a transmission line and longer for interregional transmission, and this timescale is holding back clean energy deployment.
• The risk that Congress might repeal tax incentives creates a level of uncertainty for investors that can hold back development.

Bolden

• Educating low-income communities as well as Black, Indigenous, and communities of color about the impacts and capabilities of renewable energy is essential to the clean energy transition.

Reams

• Everyone wants clean, affordable, reliable energy, but it can be difficult for Congress to agree on the details of what that means.
• The permitting process needs to become faster and easier in order to enable the building of new clean energy facilities.

 

Q: What are the kinds of actions that might be needed at the federal level to make the development of new clean energy possible?

Reams

• The United States must consider how critical minerals needed to support the clean energy transition will be sourced. Recycling and circular economy solutions are valuable but not currently capable of meeting demand. The federal government needs to plan and pass legislation to support the real needs of the transition.

Kaumaya

• Permitting is important, but the goal should not be to undermine existing environmental legislation or reviews. The important thing is to speed up the timeline on all elements of the review process so that permitting can happen more expeditiously.

Walter-Terrinoni

• Early and deep engagement with stakeholders is critical to ensure that people are not surprised by what is happening in the permitting process.

 

Q: What can Congress do to support the energy transition?

McGuigan

• Communities are often unaware of the available funding or lack the technical capability to write competitive grant applications. Congress can provide more support at the community level to make sure resources can be accessed by those that need them most.

Bolden

• Educating communities, promoting community solar, and making solar more affordable should be priorities for Congress.
• Transmission and permitting reform are critical for the clean energy transition.

Reams

• Lowering international greenhouse gas emissions needs to be a focus for both sides of the aisle. Increased Republican participation in international climate negotiations will strengthen the United States’ ability to address these issues.

 

Q: What is one policy or action that contributed to progress on the clean energy transition in the last few years?

Walter-Terrinoni

• Funding to support building upgrades and energy efficiency has been an important step forward for decreasing energy consumption. It will be important to ensure that the funding is done in a way that maximizes value while being quick and durable.

McGuigan

• The current tax credits and incentives enable businesses and utilities to invest in the clean energy transition. The funding needs to be consistent so that investors can be confident enough to support long-term projects.

Kaumaya

• Energy tax incentives help the industry grow across the board, and private investment has also been a major factor.

Bolden

• The IRA’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund will be beneficial to local communities. To support the clean energy transition, everyone needs to be brought to the table, including historically underserved communities and Black, Indigenous and communities of color.

Reams

• Federal funding for clean energy signals to the market that clean energy investments will provide a return. This provides jobs, increases domestic energy security, and reduces emissions, benefiting everyone.

 

Q: What are some of the trends in battery storage and policies that could increase long-term energy storage deployment?

Narayanan

• The energy storage industry has grown rapidly for the last several years.
• Most existing batteries have a storage duration of four hours or less, so an increase in long-duration storage is critical for the future of the industry. Some state agencies, particularly in California, are pushing for this.
• In areas of the country where natural gas, coal, or other nonrenewable energy sources are dominant, the economics of adding long-duration storage capacity may not be viable. Work needs to be done to support the transition at the state and federal level.

Reams

• The IRA included the first standalone energy storage investment tax credit, which is an important policy tool to mitigate economic challenges in storage deployment.
• In the central United States, industries have been able to operate on a mix of wind and solar by storing energy from wind to use during nighttime hours when solar is not available. Strategies like this can provide clean, inexpensive, reliable energy in large enough quantities for industrial operations.

Walter-Terrinoni

• Thermal energy storage can be used to help shift energy use away from times of peak demand. Ice can be made at night and used for cooling during the day, letting building owners avoid higher daytime energy costs.
• Building technologies can offer unexpected storage options. It is important to consider all possibilities.

 

Q: As natural gas continues to grow and takeover market share from coal, is there data to suggest that natural gas will start to take market share from renewable energy? What needs to be done in terms of policy to make sure that does not happen?

Narayanan

• As renewable energy’s share of the energy market expands, it will become increasingly difficult to eliminate the remaining nonrenewable energy sources. By 2050, renewables are projected to make up two thirds of the energy market.
• In order to make renewables more cost effective than natural gas in the long term, utility-scale battery storage will need to become much longer term and less expensive.
• If natural gas cannot be fully eliminated from the energy system, it will be important to offset emissions by building carbon capture capabilities at natural gas plants as well as pipelines and storage for the captured carbon.

Jacobson

• Energy efficiency is a critical component of any conversation about decarbonization.
• Nascent sectors in energy have the potential to decarbonize natural gas.
• Regulatory policy at the federal level has a major impact on the energy transition.

McGuigan

• Distributors can blend hydrogen and other molecules with natural gas to reduce the carbon intensity of natural gas in the short term.

Walter-Terrinoni

• Uncommon strategies like using industrial “waste heat” to heat buildings can reduce energy demand, benefitting the energy transition.

 

Q: What does the current situation look like for hydrogen?

Narayanan

• Demand for hydrogen is likely to continue to come primarily from sectors that already use it. These sectors can decarbonize by moving to clean hydrogen generated from renewable energy sources rather than from fossil fuels.
• Ideas like using hydrogen for power, as a fuel for shipping, or other similar uses are still farther away. Using pure hydrogen for power is not currently viable, so it would need to be blended with natural gas in gas-powered plants.
• Using hydrogen in steel production is a common idea, but the U.S. steel industry is largely electrified and would not need hydrogen to decarbonize.

Kaumaya

• Hydrogen can potentially be used to decarbonize the transportation sector.
• An energy tax credit for hydrogen is in the process of being rolled out. This credit will benefit hydrogen development once it is finalized.

Jacobson

• IIJA established seven hydrogen hubs throughout the country. The hubs are all different in their applications, fuel sources, and production methods for hydrogen. The program will demonstrate the many possibilities of hydrogen development.

 

Compiled by Emily Phillips and Meghan Tinnea and edited for clarity and length. This is not a transcript.

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