Clinton Plan To Power Every US Home With Renewables By 2027 Is Achievable

Lucas123 writes: As part of her campaign pledge, Hillary Clinton has said she would make it a priority in her first term to increase the number of solar panels by 500M and U.S. installed solar capacity from 21 gigawatts (GW) today to 140GW by the end of 2020. Her plan, is to increase solar, wind and other renewables so that they'd provide 33% of America's electricity by 2027, enough to power every home. While the plan may sound overly ambitious, experts say, it's not. Today, renewables provide about 15% of America's power. Shayle Kann, senior vice president at GTM Research, said the Clinton's renewable energy goal is doable, but with caveats. In order to achieve the goal, current programs, such as federal tax breaks for solar installations (set to expire next year), must continue and future initiatives, such as Obama's Clean Power Plan that will begin in 2018, must not be curtailed. Considering that if elected, Clinton wouldn't take office until 2017, the her campaign goals could be more bravado than reality. Clinton, however, is not alone. While most candidates have yet to announce their clean energy plans, Clinton's Democratic contender, Martin O'Malley, also came out with strong support for the end of fossil fuel use and a full clean energy economy by 2050, and creating a national goal of doubling energy efficiency within 15 years.

Comments

Re:headline is misleading

[SydShamino]

The headline is sufficient for those who do not understand how the power grid works, and anyone who knows how the power grid works would not be misled by the headline.

Even though my bill says "100% wind" on it, and somewhere out there are windmill(s) generating as much electricity as my home consumes, the actual power consumed in my house might just as easily come from the coal plants up the highway. It's all on the same grid.

If you understand that, then it's obvious that "Power Every US Home With Renewables" means "Generate As Much Renewable Energy As All Homes Consume". What appears on the bills of those homeowners is irrelevant.

Re:Fun question:

[Ichijo]

Or maybe due to negative externalities that weren't properly internalized into the price of energy, energy prices have been artificially low all along, encouraging people to live energy-intensive lifestyles, and now all of a sudden they have to pay the piper.

Nah, that couldn't possibly be true at all.

Re:21 Gigawats?

[WillAffleckUW]

In northern areas, you pitch the solar panels at an angle, and many houses have them on the high slope south facing roofs. There are these things called brushes we use to clean off snow so it doesn't collapse our roofs. My dad lives in a house in Vermont that is solar powered for electricity and hot water, and he survives the winters quite nicely. Helps if you have R28 insulation and triple pane windows too.