The wind and solar industries are aiming for a larger share of the nation’s power mix by 2030 and aren’t counting on aggressive policies to limit fossil fuel use, such as fracking bans, the Washington Examiner reports.
The top officials of wind and solar trade groups said recently that their respective technologies could each provide 20% of the nation’s power by 2030.
Combining wind and solar with other renewable technologies, “We can easily envision majority renewables by 2030,” said Tom Kiernan, CEO of the American Wind Energy Association, in a presentation at the U.S. Energy Association’s State of the Energy Industry forum. He said wind would jump from 7% of generation to 20% in a decade due to wind costs falling 70% in the last 10 years.
Abigail Ross Hopper, CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, predicted solar would move from 2.5% of the grid to 20% by 2030 based on market forces.
“I am not as interested in banning or closing down specific technologies as looking for the solution and letting the market figure out how to find that solution,” Hopper said in a response to a question from the Washington Examiner on whether she would support banning fracking, as some Democratic presidential candidates have proposed.
Kiernan responded similarly to the same question from the publication. “We believe the grid needs multiple different sources of electricity because there are different attributes to each of them,” Kiernan said. “We support all of the above policy and want to compete with each of them.”
Despite the optimism, the trade group leaders also warned about potential pitfalls, such as a lack of transmission lines to deliver renewables, and the Trump administration’s ongoing tariffs on solar panels.
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