The US government now promotes Solar & Wind Energy

The USA government has been a laggard in supporting solar and wind power compared to other developed nations such as Germany and Spain. While the 30% investment tax credit has helped fuel solar power growth, there has been no big bang policy of pushing solar energy growth. Falling solar electricity prices have been the biggest factor behind making USA the third largest market for solar power after Japan and China. This is not a big credit to the USA government considering the fact that USA has the largest electricity producing capacity in the world. Other developed nations such as Italy and Spain produce far more solar and wind energy than USA does.

But however things seem to be changing. Obama has increased his support to green energy sources as his term slowly comes to an end. Obama has been trying to become more assertive in key policies such as the Trans Pacific Partnership to improve trade. He is focusing more on his legacy and is willing to take the Republican majority Senate head on. Obama has increased the compliance conditions for the power industry such that it will make thermal power more costly to produce. He has made the reductions from power industry go upto 32% by 2030 up from 30%. It will become increasingly impossible to run thermal power plants let alone build new ones. EPA has been doggedly making fossil fuel power plants cleaner and has been fighting the utilities in courts.

Read about Solar Installers in USA.

Democrat frontrunner Hilary Clinton has also made renewable energy a center piece of her policy by targeting 500 million solar panels to be installed by 2020 implying a target of 140 GW, which is 7 times more than the current USA capacity of 20 GW.

While the Republican candidates are almost all climate skeptics and supporters of Big Oil and Gas, Democrats are becoming more assertive towards climate change issues. They are willing to stake more and more to help solar and wind power become more important industries each year. Solar energy is already becoming one of the most important employment generators for the USA economy. They are getting large constituencies to support them just like Big Oil and Gas. International agreements such as the one signed with China is also making the US government support more renewable energy.

Guardian

On Sunday, Hillary Clinton took a first swing at the many-headed carbon hydra. By the end of her first term, she said, the US would have seven times more solar energy capacity than it does today. And by 2027, renewable energy would supply a third of the nation’s electricity.

Clinton’s announcement, which the campaign said would be the first of many on climate change from the presidential hopeful, extends the carbon-saving ambition in a significant sector of the economy. Burning fossil fuels for electricity accounts for 31% of US greenhouse gas emissions. One estimate found Clinton’s 33% renewable target could slice another 4% off the US’s existing pledge to cut emissions by 26-28% by 2025.

Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s Americas chief, Ethan Zindler, said the ambition was high, but within reach. “It appears to be on the upper end but it’s entirely doable given the rapidly improving economics of renewables generally and solar particularly.”