Renewable Energy - Future Trends In U.s. Renewable Energy Use

In Annual Energy Outlook 2004, the EIA forecasted that total renewable fuel consumption, including ethanol for transportation, will increase by 1.9% per year from 2002 to 2025. About 60% of the projected demand for renewable fuel in 2025 will be for electricity generation. In 2002 renewable energy provided 5.8 quadrillion Btu, which is projected to increase to 9 quadrillion Btu in 2025. Renewable fuel is expected to remain a small contributor to overall electricity generation, rising only from 9% of the total generation in 2002 to 9.1% in 2025.

Hydropower production is projected to rise only slightly from 260 billion kilowatt-hours in 2002 to 309 billion kilowatt-hours in 2025. The production of other renewables should increase steadily. (See Figure 6.10.) For example, significant increases are projected for both geothermal energy and wind power capacity from 2002 to 2025. The EIA projected that wind power will increase from 4.8 gigawatts in 2002, to 8 gigawatts in 2010, and 16 gigawatts in 2025. The EIA projected that high-output geothermal capacity will increase from 13 billion kilowatt-hours in 2002 to 47 billion in 2025. This, however, will provide less than 1% of the nation's electricity needs.

Municipal solid waste and landfill gas energy production is expected to increase by nine billion kilowatthours from 2002 to 2025. The largest source of renewable generation (not including hydropower) is biomass, which is projected to more than double from 2002 to 2025. (See Figure 6.11.) Solar energy is not expected to contribute much to centrally generated electricity.

FIGURE 6.10

FIGURE 6.11