Renewable energy has the potential to meet demand with a much smaller environmental footprint and can help to alleviate other pressing problems, such as energy security, by contributing to a distributed and diversified energy infrastructure. About 78% of the nation’s energy comes from fossil fuels, 8.9% from nuclear, and 12.5% from renewable sources. In 2019, renewables surpassed coal in the amount of energy provided to the U.S. and continued this trend in 2020. Wind and solar are the fastest growing renewable sources, but contribute just 4.6% of total energy used in the U.S.
U.S. Renewable Energy Factsheet prepared by Center for Sustainable Systems, University of Michigan presents the key trends in the United States renewable energy market. It highlights the growth in capacity energy generation, price trends and policy developments for various renewable energy segments – solar, wind, biomass, geothermal and hydro.
Download the factsheet here
