Big U.S. Wind, Solar Buildout Won’t Satisfy Biden Climate Goal

(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. is expected to almost triple its wind and solar capacity over the next 10 years, but that still won’t be enough to meet President Joe Biden’s goal of fully decarbonizing the country’s power system by 2035.

That’s the assessment of a report Friday from BloombergNEF, which hosts its annual summit in New York next week.

“The pace of wind and solar isn’t going fast enough to meet the 2035 target,” BNEF analyst Tom Rowlands-Rees said in an interview. “But even if it was, there would also have to be contributions from new technologies like batteries, carbon-capture and storage, nuclear or hydrogen.”

The report comes as the White House considers a pledge to slash the country’s greenhouse-gas emissions by 50% or more by the end of the decade. A target of that magnitude would nearly double the U.S.’s previous commitment, effectively requiring drastic changes in the power, transportation and other sectors.

Between 2021 and 2030, BNEF forecasts 204 gigawatts of utility-scale solar installations and 83 gigawatts of small-scale photovoltaic additions in the U.S. It also projects the country will add 115 gigawatts of wind power over that period.

BNEF’s virtual conference on April 13 and 14 will examine what Biden will do for energy, ahead of the unveiling of the administration’s emissions-reduction goal. Speakers include White House National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy and U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.