Renewables and Carbon Dioxide Emissions

Electricity and Heat Generation from Renewables

EIA expects total renewables used in the electric power sector to decrease by 0.3% in 2017 and then increase by 7.3% in 2018. Forecast electricity generation from hydropower falls by 2.2% in 2017 and increases by 4.2% in 2018. Consumption of renewable energy other than hydropower in the electric power sector is forecast to grow by 1.3% in 2017 and by 9.8% in 2018.

EIA expects that utility-scale solar capacity will grow by about 8.5 gigawatts (GW) in 2017 and 2018 combined. This projected increase would bring the amount of solar capacity at the end of 2018 to 26.5 GW. States leading in utility-scale solar capacity additions are California, Nevada, North Carolina, Texas, and Georgia. Forecast utility-scale solar generation averages 1.2% of total U.S. electricity generation in 2018.

U.S. wind capacity totaled 76.0 GW at the end of 2016, and by 2018 that capacity is expected to rise to 89.2 GW. Forecast wind generation accounts for 6% of total generation in 2018.

Liquid Biofuels

On November 23, 2016, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized a rule setting Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) volumes for 2017. EIA used the final volumes to develop the current STEO forecast for 2017 but does not assume any explicit RFS targets for the 2018 forecast. EIA expects that the largest effect of the finalized 2017 RFS targets will be on biomass-based diesel consumption, which includes both biodiesel and renewable diesel and helps to meet the RFS targets for use of biomass-based diesel, advanced biofuel, and total renewable fuel. Biodiesel production averaged 99,000 b/d in 2016, and it is forecast to increase to an average of 104,000 b/d in 2017 and 111,000 b/d in 2018. Net imports of biomass-based diesel are expected to rise from 47,000 b/d in 2016 to 51,000 b/d in 2017 and to 57,000 b/d in 2018.

Ethanol production averaged 1.0 million b/d in 2016, and it is forecast to average around 1.0 million b/d in both 2017 and 2018. Ethanol consumption averaged about 940,000 b/d in 2016, and it is forecast to average about 940,000 b/d in 2017 and 950,000 b/d in 2018. This level of consumption results in the ethanol share of the total gasoline pool averaging about 10% in both 2017 and 2018, as only marginal increases in higher-level ethanol blends are assumed to occur during the STEO forecast period.

Energy-Related Carbon Dioxide Emissions

EIA estimates that energy-related emissions of carbon dioxide decreased by 1.6% in 2016. Emissions are forecast to increase by 1.6% in 2017 and by 0.8% in 2018. These forecasts are sensitive to assumptions about weather, economic growth, and fuel prices.