While President Trump strives to achieve the growth of wind and energy energy and extend the production of fossil fuels in the United States, the renewable energy industry makes a new pitch: you need us.
Wind and solar developers highlight more and more than America The demand for electricity soarPulled by a boom from the data centers, and it is difficult to build enough new gas power plants to provide all the additional power that the nation needs.
The storage of wind, solar and battery is relatively fast and inexpensive to build. This could help avoid energy shortages and maintain low prices, an argument that renewable energy companies make for political decision -makers.
“Our message to the administration is, let’s be realistic on this subject,” said John Ketchum, Managing Director of Nextera Energy, one of the country’s largest electricity producers, in an interview. “If you remove renewable energies and table storage, we will force electricity prices on the moon.”
At the same time, the republican leaders of the congress speak of ending federal subsidies in the form of Electricity tax credits with low carbon contentwhich was to overcome the growth of wind and solar energy. The uncertainty concerning these credits has paralyzed the renewable energy industry, companies delaying projects and dismissing workers.
Chaos could make it more difficult for the United States to reduce its global warming emissions, Even if scientists warn the risks of climate change.
But an environmental argument will not go far with a president who rejects global warming. Thus, many wind and solar societies now throw their industries as essential to reach the abundance of American energy.
“The objective is to know what we need to make sure that we have enough energy to keep our domination in manufacturing, electrification, artificial intelligence?” Said Sandhya Ganapathy, Managing Director of EDP Renewables North America, a range of wind and solar developer.
Over the next 15 years, the demand for American electricity could increase up to 50% while technological companies build massive data centers for artificial intelligence, factories are developing and millions of people plug into electric cars, according to a new study by S&P Global Commodity Insights.
Renewable companies say they are well positioned to help respect this growth in the near future. This year, wind, solar and batteries should represent 93% of a new electrical capacity added to American networks – the others from power plants that burn natural gas. In many places, the construction of new wind turbines or the installation of solar panels are often the cheapest means of generating additional electrons.
But data centers need power 24 hours a day, which wind and solar energy alone cannot provide. This is why, during the largest annual rally in the country of the energy industry in Houston last week, many leaders insisted that demand should be widely provided by natural gas factories today and perhaps in the future by Advanced nuclear reactors Or improved geothermal plantswhich can produce electricity at every hour.
“The AI ​​revolution arrives, it will be great, it will take a lot of power,” said Ryan Lance, director general of the conocophillips of the oil giant. “And the gas will be at the forefront of the conduct of this request for electricity.”
Mr. Ketchum de Nextera had a different vision. His business already has a fleet of 19 gas power plants, one of the largest in the country, and plans to build even more Gas units as the need for electricity increases. But Mr. Ketchum said the wind, solar and batteries will be just as important to meet growing demand in the coming years.
A great reason, he explained, is that electricity companies must now wait up to five years to order new gas turbines while manufacturers are struggling to follow global demand. It is unlikely that all new gas projects that are not being developed be online before 2030, he said. Other emerging technologies such as advanced nuclear energy are even further away.
On the other hand, many wind and solar projects can be built within 12 to 18 months.
The cost of building new gas power plants has also tripled since the 2022 inflation shock, said Ketchum, while wind and solar prices have only increased slightly.
Mr. Ketchum added that the intermittent nature of renewable energies is not always a problem, because the wind and solar are only a component of a larger electrical system. Some regions could have gas turbines that do not currently work much at night, so crawling them, then add solar energy and batteries for the day could help provide additional power 24 hours a day.
“Listen, no one has built gas production in the past 20 years than we, and we agree that we will need more gas,” said Ketchum. “But there is a time problem and there is a cost problem. So, our message is, do not move away from renewable energies, because it is the only thing we have as a country that we can build to meet the demand that is here at the moment and it is really a cost. “”
Some technological titans have echoed from this point of view. Microsoft, who said that he would spend $ 80 billion for new data centers this year, may need a new gas production in Wisconsin and pay a heavy sum to reopen the closed nuclear power plant in Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. But the company always says that it wants as much energy and solar energy as possible.
“It would have been a different conversation a decade ago when wind and solar were not as competitive, but now they are in fact the most competent option the most competent” in places like the South West or the big plains, said Bobby Hollis, vice-president of Microsoft.
Jim Robb, Director General of North American Electric Liability Corporation, The Nation’s Grid Monitor, has long warned that an excessive exception on renewable energies could cause new problems for public electricity services – a drought of wind during hot summer months, for example, can increase the risk of panic.
But even Mr. Robb agreed that there are not many other options to quickly enrich the energy supply in the coming years. “Insofar as we are going to free up abundant energy in North America in the short term, it will be mainly wind and solar,” Robb told a panel on network reliability in Washington last month.
This message begins to obtain conservative legislators. While Republican leaders are looking for billions of dollars in compensation to pay tax cuts, at least 21 members of the GOP House signed this month urging the preservation of preservation of Incitations for low carbon energy sources – including wind, solar, hydroelectricity, nuclear and geothermal energy – which were part of a climate law in 2022 signed by former president Joseph R. Biden Jr.
A recent study Commissioned by Conservamerica, a conservative environmental group, estimated that the repeal of these tax credits could result in an increase in American electricity costs of $ 51 billion per year by 2035, largely because wind and solar additions would decrease by 50% and will become more expensive.
“The common sense tax credits that preserve the options of everything that is for reliable energy are essential to the domination of American energy and to maintain low costs”, the Gabe Evans, republican representative of Colorado, said, explaining why he signed the letter. The district of Mr. Evans has several factories which make components with wind disruption.
For the moment, many officials of the Trump administration remain deeply skeptical of renewable energies. In Houston last week, Chris Wright, the new American energy secretary, said that wind and solar energy were not as useful As natural gas and often trigger local opposition.
“The wind was distinguished because it had a singularly mediocre assessment to increase prices and obtain an increasing indignation from citizens, whether you are a farm or you are in a coastal community,” said Wright.
“Everywhere, the penetration of wind and solar has increased significantly, prices have increased,” said Wright. (That is not always true: While California electricity rates have jumped while solar panels on the roof have proliferated, Texas has seen its prices decrease even though the wind and solar now provide a quarter of the power of the state.)
Some supporters of renewable energies said they hoped that attacks against wind and solar energy would be calm once the reality of America’s need for more electricity has flowed. only to soften After Russia has invaded Ukraine and world oil prices have increased.
“We saw the last administration to condemn the US oil and gas until the gas prices increase – then they said, uh, the guys can please produce more oil and gas,” said Jason Grumet, general manager of the American Clean Power Association, a trade in renewable industry. “We believe that once the emotion is changing in the system and the economy begins to concentrate, we will have an energy policy really all to coat.”
