EIA forecasts renewables to account for 22 percent of U.S. electricity generation in 2022

Electricity generation from renewable sources will account for 22 percent of power generated in the United States in 2022, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in its forecast Friday.

In 2020 and 2021, renewable energy sources, like hydropower, wind, and solar, accounted for 20 percent of the electricity generated. EIA said it anticipates that percentage to increase by 2 percent in 2022 and 4 percent to 24 percent in 2023.

In the agency’s reporter, Short-Term Energy Outlook, the agency showed how it expects 11 electricity markets in the U.S. to generate electricity. Electricity generation in the Northeast and California will retain the largest share of renewable energy generation, accounting for 44 percent of regional electricity generation. Both of these regions’ hydropower resources were constrained by droughts in 2021, the report said, but were still able to increase their renewable share of electricity generation over the past decade. The share increased to 40 percent in 2021 and is expected to rise to 44 percent in 2022.

The Southwest Power Pool (SPP) has had the most growth in the renewable share of electricity generation over the past decade, the report said. In 2013, 13 percent of the region’s electricity generation came from renewables, but that share increased to 40 percent in 2021, the report said. The growth was largely due to wind generation, the report said. Renewables will account for 44 percent of electricity generation in 2022.

Additionally, the Electricity Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, increased its renewable share from 10 percent in 2013 to 32 percent in 2022, the report said – the only region where the renewable electricity share has moved from less than the U.S. average to more than the U.S. average during the past nine years.

Renewable generation of electricity is lowest in three regions along the U.S. East Coast – the PJM Interconnection in the Mid-Atlantic, the Southeast (SERC Reliability Corporation), and the Florida Reliability Coordinating Council. EIA said it expected the renewable share of electricity generation to remain below half of the national average through 2023.