Enlarge / In Texas, solar facilities compete for space with a whole lot of nothing.

Earlier this week, the US' Energy Information Agency (EIA) gave a preview of the changes the nation's electrical grid is likely to see over the coming year. The data is based on information submitted to the Department of Energy by utilities and power plant owners, who are asked to estimate when generating facilities that are planned or under construction will come online. Using that information, the EIA estimates the total new capacity expected to be activated over the coming year.

Obviously, not everything will go as planned, and the capacity estimates represent the production that would result if a plant ran non-stop at full power—something no form of power is able to do. Still, the data tends to indicate what utilities are spending their money on and helps highlight trends in energy economics. And this year, those trends are looking very sunny.

Big changes

Last year , the equivalent report highlighted that solar power would provide nearly half of the 46 Gigawatts of new capacity added to the US grid. This year, the grid will add more power (just under 55 GW), and solar will be over half of it, at 54 percent. In most areas of the country, solar is now the cheapest way to generate power , and the grid additions reflect that. The EIA also indicates that at least some of these are projects that were delayed due to pandemic-induced supply chain disruptions.

Enlarge (credit: Silvia Otte )

In the US, it's well-documented that poor neighborhoods are likely to suffer from higher pollution levels. Sources of pollution, like power plants and freeways, are more likely to be located in poor neighborhoods. The ensuing pollution adds to the economic burdens faced by these neighborhoods, with increased medical costs, productivity lost due to illness, and premature deaths.

Since minorities and immigrants tend to live in lower-income neighborhoods, this also adds to the racial disparities present in the US. Now, a group of public health researchers has found another factor that contributed to this disparity. The historic practice of "redlining," or assigning high-risk scores to mortgages in minority neighborhoods, is also associated with higher power plant emissions, reinforcing the challenges minorities face in the US.

In the red

The term redlining is derived from a federal program, started in the New Deal, that was intended to expand access to mortgages and boost home ownership in the US. The organization that oversaw the program, the Home Owners' Loan Corporation , set standards for loans that focused on four categories of risk scores, evaluated by neighborhood. The highest risk category was identified on maps with a red line, leading to its name. It was much harder to obtain mortgages in these neighborhoods, which depressed housing prices for their residents.

Enlarge / The right membrane can make hydrogen production much easier. (credit: Andriy Onufriyenko )

With renewable energy becoming cheaper, there's a growing impetus to find ways of economically storing it. Batteries can handle short-term fluxes in production but may not be able to handle longer-term shortfalls or seasonal changes in power output. Hydrogen is one of several options being considered that has the potential to serve as a longer-term bridge between periods of high renewable productivity.

But hydrogen comes with its own issues. Obtaining it by splitting water is pretty inefficient, energy-wise, and storing it for long periods can be challenging . Most hydrogen-producing catalysts also work best with pure water—not necessarily an item that's easy to obtain as climate change is boosting the intensity of droughts.

A group of researchers based in China has now developed a device that can output hydrogen when starting with seawater—in fact, the device needs to be sitting in seawater to work. The key concept for getting it to work will be familiar to anyone who understands how most waterproof clothing works.

Enlarge / A field of solar panels and windmills in the desert. (credit: Getty )

On Monday, the Energy Information Agency released its annual figures for how the US generated electrical power during 2021. The year saw lots of changes as the country moved out of the pandemic, with coal, wind, and solar power all seeing large jumps compared to the previous year. Meanwhile, widespread drought conditions in the west caused a significant drop in hydroelectric production.

Longer term, the big stories are the two renewables, wind and solar. Wind only started outproducing hydro three years ago but has now developed a commanding lead. And solar has gone from a rounding error to 4 percent of annual production over the last decade and is poised for explosive growth.

Living fossils

2021 marks the first increase in annual coal use since the Obama administration. Megawatts generated via coal were up by 16 percent compared to the year prior and accounted for a bit under 22 percent of the total electricity produced. But this is likely to be a temporary change. No new coal plants are planned in the US, and the past decade has seen both the number of operating coal plants drop by half, and coal go from powering 44 percent of US electricity production to only 22 percent.

Enlarge (credit: Tunvarat Pruksachat )

The past several years have seen a lot of unexpected turbulence in the global energy market. Lockdowns during the early pandemic response caused energy use to plunge in 2020, but carbon emissions soared as the economy rebounded in 2021. Early 2022, however, saw Russia invade Ukraine and attempt to use its energy exports as leverage over European countries, leading to worries about a resurgence in coal use and a corresponding surge in emissions.

As 2022 draws to a close, however, there are many indications that things aren't going to be all that bad. Coal use has risen, but not as much as feared, and the booming renewables market has largely offset its impact on emissions. Meanwhile, Europe has made rapid adjustments to its energy supplies and appears to be in a position to handle this winter's likely energy demands.

Europe has gotten ready

In many parts of Europe, energy use peaks in the winter with the onset of cold weather. A lot of the heating demand, along with some demand for electricity, is met by burning natural gas, and Russia is a major supplier for the continent. With Russia's invasion of Ukraine, European sanctions initiated a series of threats and then curtailments in Russia's delivery of natural gas, ultimately ending with the apparent sabotage of one of the most significant natural gas pipelines.

Enlarge (credit: NREL )

This week, the US Department of Energy's Berkeley Lab released its annual analysis of solar energy in the US. It found that nearly half the generating capacity was installed in the US during 2021 and is poised to dominate future installs. That's in part because costs have dropped by more than 75 percent since 2010; it's now often cheaper to build and operate a solar plant than it is to simply buy fuel for an existing natural gas plant.

The analysis was performed before the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act , which contains many incentives and tax breaks that should expand solar's advantages in the coming years.

Solar, by the numbers

In terms of large, utility-scale solar installs, the US added over 12.5 gigawatts of new capacity last year, bringing the total installed capacity to over 50 gigawatts. Texas led the way, with about a third of the total capacity added (3.9 GW) going online in the Lone Star State. Combined with residential and other distributed solar installations, solar alone accounted for 45 percent of the new generating capacity added to the grid last year.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images )

On Thursday, the Biden administration announced the latest in its renewable energy efforts, this time focused on a technology that hasn't really arrived yet: floating offshore wind turbines. Compared to turbines directly anchored on the seafloor, floating versions are estimated to cost about 50 percent more, placing large ocean areas off-limits to economic energy development. The program announced today will create a " wind shot " that aims to drop the costs by more than 70 percent over the next decade and position the US as an industry leader in this industry.

Will it float?

While offshore wind is booming in Europe and China (and poised for a belated takeoff in the US), existing hardware is built directly up from the seafloor, which requires sitting in shallow waters. This works out well for the US East Coast, where a broad continental shelf can host massive wind farms, many of which are in the permitting and planning stages. Most of those projects involve a partnership with European companies, as the US's long delay in adopting offshore wind has ceded the industry to the countries that pioneered the field.

Based on a newly released map of the potential for offshore wind in the US, many areas with good potential are too deep to be exploited by wind turbines affixed to the ocean floor. This includes nearly the entire West Coast, Hawaii, and the Great Lakes. Even along the East Coast, floating turbines could greatly expand the areas open to development.

Enlarge / Batteries roll through an automated assembly line. (credit: xPACIFICA/Getty Images )

On Monday, the US Department of Energy announced that it was releasing over $3 billion in funds to stimulate the production of batteries within the country. The funding is divided into two chunks, one intended to spur the processing of battery materials and manufacturing demos and the second for stimulating the reuse and recycling of electric vehicle batteries.

Shortly after taking office, President Joe Biden's administration started a review of the lithium battery industry in the US. The result was a " National Blueprint " that set out a series of priorities for stimulating domestic production and use.

These include: