We Don’t Need Gas For Electricity

Over the last decade, the United States moved away from coal and became heavily reliant on gas for electricity generation. Yet advancements in solar and wind energy, combined with battery storage technologies, have changed the game. Now we have clean alternatives that can provide reliable electricity at all hours of the day at an even cheaper price than gas. This puts a zero-emission grid within reach.

Renewables Are Now Cheaper Than Gas

Renewable energy – even without subsidies – is now routinely the lowest-cost source for new electricity generation, according to leading industry observers such as Lazard, the world’s largest investment bank. 

Renewables Are Now Cheaper Than Gas
We Dont Need Gas for a Reliable Grid

Gas Isn’t Needed For a Reliable Grid

Rapidly advancing battery storage technology provides an important partner for variable wind and solar generation. Indeed, renewables plus batteries are quickly overtaking the market for gas peaker plants, which run only when needed to meet high electricity demand.

No particular fuel source, including gas, is necessary for maintaining power system reliability, and renewable generators, packaged with storage, energy efficiency, and demand response, can reliably and cost-effectively replace gas plants.

Eliminating Pollution From Gas-Fired Power is Essential

Due in large part to surging gas use, America is currently on track to have higher carbon emissions in 2050 than it did in 2020.

We Must End Pollution From Fracked Gas
Renewable Energy Battery Storage

The Power Sector Transition Is Underway

The U.S. generated more power from renewable sources than coal in 2020, and electric utilities across the U.S. are embracing the clean energy transition with a wave of ambitious new decarbonization goals – encouraged by falling prices of solar, wind, and battery storage.

Several utilities now have serious plans to move beyond gas and transition to entirely carbon-free electric generation.

Rooftop Solar Provides Another Alternative to Gas

Rooftop solar installations allow homeowners and businesses to slash their energy bills, while also benefiting all energy customers that still depend on the electric grid – in part by reducing the need to generate power from costly fossil-fueled plants.

Distributed solar, paired with batteries and advanced controls, can also scale to replace gas plants. Leading residential solar company Sunrun proved this in 2019 by underbidding gas-fueled competitors to win a contract in the New England power market. Under this bid, Sunrun is building a “virtual power plant” – relying on rooftop solar and batteries to deliver clean energy and compete with the services provided by traditional power plants.

Rooftop Solar Provides Another Alternative to Gas
Clean Energy Is An Economic Engine

Clean Energy is an Economic Engine

The clean energy sector has become a significant part of the American economy, and clean jobs now outnumber fossil fuel jobs nearly three to one and typically provide better wages.

New wind or solar farms benefit rural communities through outsized jobs impacts, direct lease payments to landowners and tax payments to local governments and school districts. The solar and wind industries in 2020 alone paid $1.7 billion in state and local tax payments and nearly $800 million in landowner lease payments. By 2030, wind and solar could drive as much revenue to rural America as other leading agricultural commodities like corn, soybeans, or beef production.

100% Clean Electricity Is Within Our Reach

Because of the sharply declining costs for renewable energy and battery storage technology, the United States, with modest market and regulatory changes, could reliably deliver 90% clean electricity nationwide by 2035 at no additional cost to consumers, according to new reports from researchers at UC Berkeley and Energy Innovation.

This finding shows 100% clean electricity is well within reach – and can be achieved if we act with more ambition.

100% Clean Electricity Is Within Our Reach