Decarbonizing Economy Requires Lot More Electricity: Big Ramp-ups in Solar, Wind Power Are Needed

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Abstract

The column summarizes the findings of a report prepared for the Coalition for Community Solar Access, which concludes that to achieve New England's 2050 economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions reductions goals would require increasing the annual deployments of new renewable energy resources to on average four to eight times the levels currently planned for the next decade between now and 2050. While this represents a significant acceleration, the required ramp-up would represent an annual growth rate of clean energy deployments of under 10%, below the growth rates of the necessary renewable technologies observed over the past decades.