“Renewables On the Rise” Shows Clean Energy Progress in PA

From PennEnvironment (http://www.pennenvironment.org):

In Pennsylvania, you may have noticed something changing over the past decade. Maybe you remember the first time you saw a solar panel on your neighbor’s roof or an electric vehicle passing you on the road. Maybe you saw wind turbines on the horizon on your last road trip. Over the past 10 years, clean energy technologies have made their way into our everyday lives.

But we wanted to stop and look at the numbers — how much have clean energy solutions actually grown in the past decade?

That’s why we put together our “Renewables on the Rise” report, to show clean energy progress over the past 10 years in Pennsylvania and across the country. I wanted to share our findings with you.

The report looks at the growth of wind energy, solar energy, energy storage, electric vehicles and energy efficiency programs over the past decade, and in Pennsylvania, we found that renewable energy really is on the rise:

Pennsylvania was ranked 22nd out of every state in the U.S. for growth in solar energy generation and 16th for growth in wind energy generation.

18,248 electric vehicles were sold in Pennsylvania over the past 10 years.

Last year, Pennsylvania generated 4,125 GWh of clean wind and solar power.¹

To see how these numbers compare to other states across the U.S. — and to learn more about energy efficiency, battery storage and more — check out the full report and our new interactive map.

America’s energy landscape is changing fast. As a country, we now produce almost five times as much renewable electricity from the sun and the wind as we did just a decade ago. This progress gives us hope that we can take the clean energy revolution to the next level and transition to a greener, healthier society.²

1. “Renewables on the Rise,” PennEnvironment Research & Policy Center and Frontier Group, August 22, 2019.
2. “Renewables on the Rise,” PennEnvironment Research & Policy Center and Frontier Group, August 22, 2019.