Wind power is forecast to grow by 12.8% in 2015 and by 13.0% in 2016.
The total amount of electricity generated by renewable energy sources in the United States will grow 1.8% this year, estimates the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) in a Short-Term Energy Outlook released this summer. According to EIA projections, non-hydropower renewable power generation will increase by 5.5% in 2015, while hydropower will decrease 2% in that period due to the effects of the California drought.
EIA expects continued growth in utility-scale solar power generation, which is projected to average 86 gigawatt-hours per day in 2016. EIA expects utility-scale solar capacity will increase by 90% between the end of 2014 and the end of 2016, with more than half of this new capacity being built in California.
Wind capacity, which grew by 8.3% in 2014, is forecast by EIA to grow 12.8% in 2015 and by 13.0% in 2016. According to the report, because wind is starting from a much larger base than solar power (even though the growth rate is lower), the absolute increase in wind capacity is projected to be twice that of solar: 18 GW of wind compared with 9 GW of utility-scale solar between 2014 and 2016.
Read the full EIA Short-Term Energy Outlook here.
U.S. Energy Information Administration
www.eia.gov
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