Economic drivers of wind and solar penetration in the US

Abstract

Much has been made of the potential for wind and solar generation to supply cheap, low-emissions electricity, but considerable disagreement exists as to which combinations of many potential drivers will enable deep penetration of these technologies. Most existing analyses consider limited factors in isolation, such as investment costs or energy storage, and do not provide rigorous support for understanding which combinations of factors could underpin a leading role for wind and solar. This study addresses this gap by undertaking a systematic sensitivity analysis using a state-of-the-art energy-economic model to comprehensively evaluate the relative magnitudes of five key drivers that may influence future wind and solar deployment in the United States. We find future wind and solar capital costs and carbon policy are the dominant factors, causing the average wind and solar share to vary by 38 and 31 percentage points, respectively. Transmission and storage availability have much smaller effects, causing the average share to vary by no more than 15 and 5 percentage points, respectively. No single factor unilaterally determines wind and solar deployment. The variable renewable share of electricity generation never reaches 100% nationally in any scenario even with lowcost storage, as decreasing marginal returns at higher deployments eventually outpace cost reductions. Average wind and solar shares and ranges of possible outcomes are higher in this study relative to recent multi-model comparison studies due to lower renewable costs and the potential for more stringent policies. Understanding drivers and barriers to renewable deployment has important ramifications for technology developers, infrastructure, market design, and policymakers, and this research provides insights as to which combinations of drivers lead to the greatest share of economic wind and solar deployment and why.

Green Trend in Global Energy Development: Tendencies and Opportunities

“…The largest share of funds goes to the sector of solar and wind generation. Thus, the financing of wind energy in the first half of 2020 amounted to $35 billion, which is 319% more than in the whole of 2019 11 (Bistline and Young, 2019).…”

Intermittency in Wind Energy and Emissions from the Electricity Sector: Evidence from 13 Years of Data

“…Wind generation capacity in the United States has grown rapidly in the past two decades due to the precipitous decline in costs as well as financial incentives and state level mandates for renewable energy playing a central role in US environmental policy [1,2]. Consistently, annual electricity generation from wind energy increased from 6 billion kWh (0.1% of total) in 2000 to 338 billion kWh (8.4% of total) in 2020 in the US [3].…”

Implications of variations in renewable cost projections for electric sector decarbonization in the United States

“…These studies also generally do not examine how these differences may impact electric sector planning and decarbonization strategies, because cost assumptions alone do not uniquely determine deployment levels ( Bistline, 2021a ; Jaxa-Rozen and Trutnevyte, 2021 ). The extant literature using stylized cost trajectories for renewables indicates that investment decisions and policy costs are sensitive to technological cost assumptions, including those for variable renewables ( Bistline and Young, 2019 ; Cole et al., 2021 ) but also that model structure plays an important role ( Bistline, 2021b ; Mai et al., 2018 ). Other studies ( Grant et al., 2021 ; Luderer et al., 2021 ) look at the impact of lower wind and solar costs on electrification and economy-wide decarbonization using global integrated assessment models, whose lower temporal, spatial, and technological detail make them less appropriate for assessing power-sector-specific effects.…”