Twenty-nine states have adopted renewable energy standards and another 7 states have established goals for renewable generation that require 93,000 megawatts of new electric generation to be built by 2035, according to a study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Of this total, 33,000 Mw are built.
The remaining 60,000 megawatts that must be built to comply with state laws over 23 years require on average only about 2,500 megawatts per year. That requirement is vastly lower than the 15,000 megawatts of new renewable generation that will be built across America in 2012 alone.
Indeed, new renewable generation will rarely fall below 5,000 megawatts per year going forward and will normally be one-third or more of America's annual new generation capacity. In short, America's renewable energy generation industry easily builds every year much more new capacity than is required by the current renewable energy standards. And building renewable energy capacity will be one of America's biggest power businesses in the next two decades.