This year is shaping up to be a very green for the American energy sector. U.S. power emissions are expected to fall to a two-decade low in light of the year of “de-carbonization”.
Bloomberg New Energy Finance reports that CO2 emissions from the power sector should drop to their lowest levels since 1994.
The factors most connect to this decline include:
- The instillation of more renewables than ever before—with around 18 new GW coming online.
- A record year for coal retirements—forecasting 23GW to come offline.
- The burning of more natural gas in 2015 than ever before.
This from Bloomberg New Energy Finance:
The result of this churn is that CO2 emissions from the power sector should fall to their lowest levels since 1994, BNEF has found. This would put power sector emissions 15.4% below 2005 levels. Overall, the US has pledged to cut all CO2 emissions (inclusive of the power, transport, agricultural, industrial, and residential sectors) by 28% by 2025 from a baseline of 2005.
“More interesting than the single-year drop in emissions are the ‘structural’ impacts that will live on for decades,” says William Nelson, Head of North American Analysis. “Emissions can rise or fall year-to-year based on weather anomalies and volatile fuel prices – but in 2015, we’ll take a giant, permanent step towards de-carbonizing our entire fleet of power plants.”
Learn more about the future of the energy infrastructure in this episode of the ECS Podcast with NREL’s John A. Turner.
And make sure to catch him at the 227th ECS Meeting, where he’ll give the ECS Lecture entitled “Hydrogen from Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting – What’s it gonna’ take?“
