Changes in U.S. renewable energy are documented in Renewable Energy Annual 2001, the seventh annual report on the subject from the Energy Information Administraton (EIA). It covers energy consumption and electricity generation, as well as manufacturing activities for solar and geothermal heat pump equipment.

Renewable energy consumption declined more than 12 percent in 2001 to 5.7 quadrillion Btu, the lowest level in over 12 years. The largest decline was a 23-percent drop in hydroelectric power generation caused by below-normal levels of precipitation in the Pacific Northwest.

Renewable Energy Consumption in the Nation's Energy Supply, 2001

Source: Energy Information Administration.

The decrease in hydropower was so steep that biomass became the leading source of renewable energy for the first time since 1992 even though biomass energy consumption itself fell 3 percent. Consumption of wind energy increased in 2001, although it still accounted for only a tiny fraction of U.S. energy consumption.

Renewable energy is consumed mainly in the production of electricity, but in 2001, 35 percent was used to produce useful thermal output and 2 percent--mostly ethanol--was consumed by the transportation sector.

Electricity
Renewable electric generating capacity increased modestly in 2001, rising by 1,803 megawatts to reach 96,741 megawatts. Wind power provided most of the increase, as wind electric power plant net summer capacity expanded by over 70 percent to 4,062 megawatts.

Five States (Washington, California, Oregon, New York, and Idaho) provided 62 percent of total renewable net electricity generation, which stood at 356 billion kilowatthours in 2000, the latest year for which State data are available.

Manufacturing
Photovoltaic cell and module shipments reached 97.7 peak megawatts in 2001, an 11-percent increase over 2000. Domestic shipments of photovoltaic cells and modules increased by 83 percent in 2001, while exports declined for the first time in more than a decade. The residential sector replaced the industrial sector as the largest market for photovoltaic cells and modules in 2001.

Total shipments of solar thermal collectors were 11.2 million square feet in 2001, an increase of 34 percent over the 2000 total, for total growth of 61 percent between 1993 and 2001. The residential sector continues to be the prime market for solar collectors, taking 90 percent of total shipments.

Shipments of geothermal heat pumps decreased 15 percent during 2000 to less than 36,000 units. The total capacity of the units shipped fell at a similar rate.

New This Year
Renewable Energy Annual 2001 reflects EIA's recently revised organization of electric power generation and fuel use data, so that electric utilities and independent power producers now form the electric power sector. Historical renewable energy data have also been revised and appear in a new appendix.

This year's report provides considerably more detail on biomass energy consumption than in previous years. It also contains a new appendix that describes all the legislation introduced into the 107th session of the U.S. Congress that affects renewable energy, and another that explains revisions to the EIA methodology for presenting sectors and estimating electric power producers' energy consumption.

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File last modified: December 20, 2002