In this video from the ACORE policy forum held in Washington, DC last Wednesday (see here for a summary of the event), Ethan Zindler, Head of Policy Analysis at Bloomberg New Energy Finance; and Nancy Pfund, Managing Partner at DBL Investors provided "The Facts, the Real Facts, and Nothing but the Facts!" on clean energy. What are those "real facts?" As ACORE puts it:
The real facts highlight significant growth and investment, continuous technology improvement and cost decline, as renewable energy becomes increasingly competitive against incumbent industries. The facts present an industry that is providing reliable and growing portions of our electric power and transportation fuels while attracting billions of dollars of private sector investment, leading to much needed job creation and enhancing our global competitiveness.
Specifically, Zindler explained that with U.S. coal-fired power in rapid decline, opportunities are opening up for renewables. Zindler added that the levelized cost of energy for renewable power as starting to become competitive without subsidies, which means that the long-term outlook is highly bullish, despite a possibly rocky next couple years.
In her presentation, Pfund argued that renewable energy has been experiencing a great degree of success in recent years. She further noted that this success has led fossil fuel “incumbents” to become increasingly worried and to launch challenges to policies (e.g., net metering, the Production Tax Credit) that are favorable to clean energy.
The bottom line is that clean energy is thriving, and also on a path towards even more success in the future. The main question is whether policymakers will help that success come faster, or whether they will put roadblocks in the way that will slow it down. Obviously, we strongly favor the first scenario.