by Brianna Crandall — August 10, 2015—The total amount of electricity generated by renewable energy sources in the United States will grow 1.8% this year, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates in its July 7 Short-Term Energy Outlook. According to EIA projections, nonhydropower renewable power generation will increase by 5.5% in 2015, while hydropower will decrease 2% in that period due to the effects of the California drought.
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Solar
EIA expects continued growth in utility-scale solar power generation, which is projected to average 86 gigawatt-hours per day in 2016. EIA also expects utility-scale solar capacity to increase by 90% between the end of 2014 and the end of 2016, with more than half of this new capacity being built in California. Other leading states include North Carolina, Nevada, Texas, and Utah, which, when combined with California, account for more than 90% of the projected utility-scale capacity additions for 2015 and 2016.
Wind
Wind capacity, which grew by 8.3% in 2014, is forecast by EIA to grow 12.8% in 2015 and 13.0% in 2016. According to the report, because wind is starting from a much larger base than solar, even though the growth rate is lower, the absolute increase in wind capacity is projected to be twice that of solar: 18 gigawatts (GW) of wind compared with 9 GW of utility-scale solar between 2014 and 2016.
