Martin Rosenberg | Jan 28, 2011

 

The energy generation fleet of America is going to be cleaner in decades to come, one industry leader predicts. And solar will be playing an increasingly important role, according to the head of a solar association.

Thomas Kuhn, president and chief executive of the Edison Electric Institute, said, "We want a cleaner, more modern energy fleet by 2021," The EEI represents the nation's investor-owned utilities. Kuhn made his comments at the U.S. Energy Association State of the Energy Industry Forum in Washington earlier this month.

Transforming energy generation in America, Kuhn said, "will be expensive but it won't have a major effect on ratepayers." That is because the utility sector is already dealing with a rising tide of expenditures.

Last year, utilities spent more than $80 billion in capital expenditures on generation, transmission and distribution, Kuhn said. That doubled the amount spent in 2004. "We have to raise a lot of capital."

Kuhn will be speaking about the technological, financial and regulatory trends shaping the future of the industry at the EnergyBiz Leadership Forum in Washington, Feb. 27 - March 1.

"We are going to see . a much cleaner, modernized energy fleet," Kuhn said. "We have a vision for the next decade." While as much as one-fifth of the coal fleet will be retired in the next decade, clean coal will still have a role to play. "Coal is the backbone of the electric system," Kuhn said.

Rhone Resch, president and chief executive of the Solar Energy Industries Association, predicted that solar is about to get much more competitive in price with conventional forms of generation like coal-fired and natural gas fueled generation.

In a few years, he said, "solar will be the fastest growing source and largest annual new source of electricity coming on line in the United States."

Solar units will be installed "that costs less than 10 cents a kilowatt-hour by 2015, subsidy-free," Resch predicted. The cost of solar panels has fallen sharply recently, primarily as a result of a steep ramp up in production in China. The Chinese manufacturers have reduced their prices in pursuit of growing their market share.  Competitors have alleged that the Chinese have engaged in unfair trade practices.

Last year, China's investments in clean energy climbed 30 percent of $51.1 billion, the largest sum in the world, the New York Times reported this week.

Resch predicted that 20,000 megawatts of solar generation a year will be installed by 2020. As a result, employment will increase. The solar industry employed 93,000 as of August, he said. By 2015, the surge in solar deployments will create 250,000 jobs associated with the production, sales and installation of the solar panels, Resch said.

Continue the conversation!  For more discussion on the future of renewable energy, coal, nuclear power and transmission, join us at the 3rd Annual EnergyBiz Leadership Forum, the most influential gathering of power industry executives in the United States.  Visit www.EnergyBizForum.com for more information.

 

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