Electricity
- We expect the share of electricity generation produced by natural gas in the United States will average 35% in 2021 and 34% in 2022, down from 39% in 2020. In 2021, the forecast share for natural gas as a generation fuel declines in response to our expectation of a higher delivered natural gas price for electricity generators, which we forecast will average $4.69/MMBtu in 2021 compared with $2.39/MMBtu in 2020. The share of natural gas as a generation fuel also declines through 2022 because of expected increases in generation from renewable sources. As a result of the higher expected natural gas prices, the forecast share of electricity generation from coal rises from 20% in 2020 to about 24% in both 2021 and 2022. New additions of solar and wind generating capacity are offset somewhat by reduced generation from hydropower this year, resulting in the forecast share of all renewables in U.S. electricity generation to average 20% in 2021, about the same as last year, before rising to 22% in 2022. The nuclear share of U.S. electricity generation declines from 21% in 2020 to 20% in 2021 and to 19% in 2022 as a result of retiring capacity at some nuclear power plants.
- We forecast that planned additions to U.S. wind and solar generating capacity in 2021 and 2022 will increase electricity generation from those sources. We estimate that the U.S. electric power sector added 14.7 gigawatts (GW) of new wind capacity in 2020. We expect 17.6 GW of new wind capacity will come online in 2021 and 6.3 GW in 2022. Utility-scale solar capacity rose by an estimated 10.5 GW in 2020. Our forecast for added utility-scale solar capacity is 15.9 GW for 2021 and 16.3 GW for 2022. We expect significant solar capacity additions in Texas during the forecast period. In addition, we project that after increasing by 4.5 GW in 2020, small-scale solar capacity (systems less than 1 megawatt) will grow 5.8 GW and 5.7 GW in 2021 and 2022 respectively.
