The U.S.’s capacity for renewable energy increased last year, with solar and wind power up 16% from 2021. A recent report by Climate Central found that Republican states Texas, Iowa, Oklahoma, and Kansas produced the most wind energy while California, Texas, Florida, and North Carolina produced the most solar energy.
According to The Guardian, 64 million US households used renewable energy sources to power their homes in 2022.
The administration of President Joe Biden aims to achieve net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 as well as the complete decarbonization of the nation’s power grid by 2030.
According to Jennifer Brady, a senior data analyst at Climate Central, we are getting closer to the objectives we need to accomplish in order to achieve net zero, as The Guardian reported. The weather is a free natural resource that can be used to produce electricity.
As part of the Inflation Reduction Act from last year, the Biden administration has allocated billions of dollars for renewable energy projects.
States with Republican governors and a majority of Republican state legislators are leading the nation in solar and wind, which indicates that federal and state incentives appear to be effective. Republican leaders in Congress and at the local level frequently frustrate climate action.
According to Yale Climate Connections, South Dakota was the state that produced most of its total electricity output from renewable sources in 2021. The state’s electricity was generated by renewable sources to an extent of 83 percent, mostly through the utilization of wind energy.
Transmission lines for wind energy have been constructed in Texas so that in the future, homes, businesses, and wind farms can all be connected to the grid. It is simpler to lease land for wind turbines in the state because only 2% of the state’s land is subject to federal regulation.
In Texas, wind energy has increased by more than doubling over the last five years, from 15% to 34%, while gas production has decreased from 49% to 34%.
According to Irfan Khan, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Texas A&M, Texas is rich in both wind speed and sunlight. Even though there is a significant upfront investment, after the wind turbines are up, the cost of wind is lower.
Senior research engineer at Princeton University Eric Larson noted that, while Texas is an oil and gas producing powerhouse, the wind is being considered as another possible source of cash.
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Texas is the state that produces the most renewable energy, but it still gets a significant portion of its electricity from fossil fuels, according to a report by Yale Climate Connections. A little more than 25% of the state’s entire electricity production comes from renewable sources, whereas 44% of its electricity in 2021 came from natural gas.
According to The Guardian, the amount of solar and wind energy produced in the United States last year increased to 683,130-gigawatt hours (GWh) from 588,471 GWh.
The key to increasing solar and wind capacity, according to experts, is expanding the number of transmission lines that transport electricity from rural solar and wind farms to urban areas.
By the end of 2020, there were 8,100 energy projects awaiting authorization to be connected to the grid, and more than 90% of those projects involving solar, wind, and battery storage.
According to Khan, if we don’t have transmission lines to support the renewable energy that flows into the grid, it’s meaningless because the grid can currently not handle all of the renewable energy that Texas already produces.
According to a study, the Red States produces more wind and solar energy than the rest of the country combined.
