Rocky Mountain Institute: Renewables Pushing Out Natural Gas

Analyzing two of the US largest electricity markets — ERCOT in Texas and PJM in the Northeast, the Rocky Mountain Institute has made a surprising conclusion: renewable energy sources are winning over natural gas as the preferred choice for electricity generation.

RMI also concludes that the electrical utility industry news to move away from the monopoly markets toward more open competition, where renewables beat thermal generation 95% of the time.

According to Clean Technica, RMI analyzed the interconnection queues for both Texas and the Northeast and discovered that much more renewable energy projects than gas-fired power plants were completed over the past two years.

Interconnection queues track new power generation projects that are proposed to be added to a regional grid.

“RMI finds that since 2018, the queue for clean energy projects has more than doubled while the queue for gas projects has been cut in half. In all, more than $30 billion worth of gas projects have been canceled or abandoned. Currently, the capacity of wind, solar, and storage projects slated for construction in ERCOT and PJM is ten times greater than for new gas projects.”

The Institute agrees that the COVID-19 pandemic might have contributed to the decline of planned gas plants, but also points out that the trend has been building for years.

Investors are simply beginning to take into account broader implications — in this case, the continually falling costs of clean energy.