by Joshua S Hill
February 5th, 2016
The US renewable energy industry installed 16 GW of clean energy in 2015, which is 68% of all new capacity installed.
These are the primary findings from Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s (BNEF) Sustainable Energy in America Factbook report released this week, released in conjunction with the Business Council for Sustainable Energy (BCSE).
A Permanent Shift?
“Two thousand fifteen will surely be remembered as a watershed year in the evolution of US energy, as the industry passed important milestones and the federal government finalized critical new policies,” the authors of the report wrote.
“The already rapid de-carbonization of the US power sector accelerated with record numbers of coal plant closures and solar photovoltaic system commissionings, while natural gas production and consumption hit an all-time high. Concurrently, the US continued to enjoy greater benefits from energy efficiency efforts as economic growth outpaced the growth in electricity consumption.”
All of these milestones meant that the US power sector’s CO2 emissions fell to its lowest annual level since the mid-1990s, with a “negligible to positive” impact on customers “as prices for electricity and fuel remained low by historic standards and customer choices expanded.”
Bloomberg also concluded that, “Perhaps most importantly, many of the key changes seen in 2015 are likely permanent shifts, rather than temporary adjustments due to one-time events.”
“2015 clearly marked a turning point for American energy,” said Lisa Jacobson, President of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy. “As we consider the post-Paris world, we should acknowledge that we’ve entered a new era here in the United States. We now have both the tools and the capacity to achieve carbon reductions and cost savings along with economic growth. Now our job is to continue to build on the progress we’ve made.” For full article.