U.S. clean energy industry trade groups unveiled Tuesday a collective target of reaching at least 50% renewable generation in the next decade, a tripling of the country’s current capacity.
The move — announced by the CEOs of the American Wind Energy Association, the Solar Energy Industries Association, the Energy Storage Association, and the National Hydropower Association — is a bid to align the sectors’ policy agenda. That way, the industries can speak with one voice when advocating for federal and state policies to support clean energy, the CEOs said during remarks at the virtual CleanPower 2020 conference.
Because electricity load growth is flat or declining, if renewables experience massive growth, they would rapidly displace other energy sources, said Abigail Ross Hopper, SEIA’s CEO.
“That’s why it’s critical for us to stay aligned,” Hopper said. “We are going out to take other people’s market share.”
In the groups’ vision, solar and wind power would each make up 20% of generation in 2030. That would mean a growth of 13 percentage points for wind power and 17 percentage points for solar, compared to 2019.
Hydropower would grow 2 percentage points, to 9%, by 2030 under their vision. Those renewables would be supported by 100 gigawatts of energy storage — about 40 GW of pumped hydro storage and 85 GW of battery storage. That compares to 23 GW of pumped hydro and 1 GW of battery storage on the grid in 2019.
The CEOs also outlined policy principles that include targeting significant carbon reductions, modernizing the grid, and advocating for “fair market rules.”
“We also need to be talking together about the influence of regulation and of changing the regulatory framework,” said Kelly Speakes-Backman, CEO of the storage group. That includes making sure power markets support a majority renewables vision, she added.
