The U.S. is enjoying a year in the sun — sort of.
Utility-scale solar installations have hit historic highs, leading to record solar generation and helping to stabilize the electric grid during this year’s blazing hot summer.
But the solar boom has failed to offset the climate pollution from a jump in natural gas generation and a slowdown in wind projects. The trend has prompted energy modelers to downgrade their projections for U.S. emissions reductions, leaving the country further afield of President Joe Biden’s pledge to slash greenhouse gas levels 50 percent of 2005 levels by the end of the decade.
“Our latest analysis of projects in the pipeline shows that both solar and wind are underperforming, aligning more closely with a scenario that would yield only a 30% emissions reduction by 2030,” researchers at the Rhodium Group and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology wrote in a recent report.
