The annual outlook issue of Renewable Energy World magazine is our attempt to predict what will happen within the renewable energy industry over the course of the year. To do this, we went straight to the top of major renewable energy companies, asking CEOs and presidents to tell us where they are devoting their company resources in order to capitalize on some of the market growth that they expect to see in 2015.

In a must-read report released this week on fast-changing energy markets, the National Bank of Abu Dhabi signals a once-in-a-lifetime opening for investors in Middle Eastern renewables and energy efficiency.

Policies favoring clean energy and increased competition would normally dim prospects for existing producers. Not in Chile, where foreign investors are driving a renewable boom at a time of surging returns by local utilities.

Sweden and Norway agreed to boost their target for renewable energy production amid concerns the additional capacity will exacerbate a power glut and strain the region’s electricity grid.

The Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has amended Russia’s federal law on the electric power industry. Ordinance No47 lays out a number of measures aiming to stimulate renewable energy sales in the national retail market.

Sen. Troy Fraser (R-Horseshoe Bay) has filed a bill that would eliminate Texas’ Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) – a policy that has catapulted Texas to world leadership in wind energy and strengthened Texas’ energy diversity. In addition to terminating the RPS at the end of the year, SB 931would make it more difficult to build renewable energy infrastructure. The argument behind the bill is that because Texas has achieved its RPS goals it’s time to move on. Sounds reasonable, right? Well…

In our second annual survey on American homeowners’ attitudes toward clean energy, one thing is resoundingly clear. In a nation divided on climate change, immigration policy, and so many other issues, Americans are overwhelmingly united in their support of renewable energy.

We've made great progress with renewable energy — but from an almost zero base we still have a long way to go. Fortunately, the path is clear. California is already over 12 percent with a combination of hydroelectric, wind and solar (unfortunately not much hydro this year). Getting to 50 percent only requires the deployment of existing technology. But can we get to 100 percent?

Brazil will increase the use of renewable energy, target zero net deforestation and push for low-carbon agriculture as part of its climate proposal, Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira said in an interview.

Just over a decade ago, the state of California faced serious concerns about whether its utilities could generate and/or buy enough power to assure that the world’s seventh-largest economy could keep the lights on. The infamous California energy crisis, which affected several other western states as well, was a complex tangle of poorly structured deregulation, significant market manipulation (remember Enron?), and other causes. Along with rolling blackouts, California endured an official state of emergency that lasted 34 months, led to the recall and replacement of Gov. Gray Davis, and cost the state and its ratepayers billions of dollars — a cautionary tale for all states of electricity supply unable to meet demand.

City councilors want to learn more about a potential multi-million dollar hydroelectric project at the South Saskatchewan River Weir in Saskatoon, a city in central Saskatchewan, Canada.  

Turns out that Americans are a bit overly optimistic about the role that renewable energy plays in the U.S. The average American believes that 20 percent of the country’s energy use comes from renewables—11 percent from solar and 9 percent from wind.

This week at the Assembly of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), political and business leaders from around the world outlined the far-reaching geopolitical implications of an energy transformation driven by the rapid growth of renewable energy.

The fallout from California power giant PG&E Corp.’s looming bankruptcy has been both sudden and widespread: Its electricity suppliers have seen their debt cut to junk. Banks are facing liabilities as buyers of last resort for more than $760 million of bonds the utility issued through California. And the rest of the state’s utilities have tumbled.

Utilities and renewable-energy advocates have long had a complicated relationship. Yet the prospect of PG&E Corp. tipping into bankruptcy by the end of January has sent shivers through the solar-and-wind sector.

EIA expects non-hydroelectric renewable energy resources such as solar and wind will be the fastest growing source of U.S. electricity generation for at least the next two years. EIA’s January 2019 Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) forecasts that electricity generation from utility-scale solar generating units will grow by 10 percent in 2019 and by 17 percent in 2020. According to the January STEO, wind generation will grow by 12 percent and 14 percent during the next two years. EIA forecasts total U.S. electricity generation across all fuels will fall by 2 percent this year and then show very little growth in 2020.

Corporations signing PPAs with renewable energy power producers have been on the rise for quite some time but in 2018, the group as a whole purchased more than double the clean energy they purchased in 2017.

GE announced today that it sees a future in housing its renewable generation businesses (onshore and offshore wind, hydropower) alongside its grid businesses which include substations and transformers plus solar, storage and distributed energy resource (DER) control software. GE Renewable Energy CEO Jerome Pecresse said in a press conference that the move will simplify the lives of GE’s customers by giving them one point of contact for all of their renewable energy power needs.

PG&E Corp. is seeking court protection to amend or cancel power purchase agreements with suppliers as part of its bankruptcy proceedings.

The global strategy for mitigating climate change is no secret. Most countries have embarked on an initiative to transition to clean energy sources. According to a study by scientists from the universities of Oxford and Utrecht, we will almost certainly pass a point of no return for dealing with global warming if governments worldwide don’t transition away from fossil fuels, such as coal and natural gas, towards renewable energy by 2035. This would mean that renewables would need to see their total share of power generation increase by at least two percent per year.

Australian hydrogen infrastructure developer H2U confirmed today that it will use Baker Hughes NovaLT gas turbine generators at its South Australian Renewable Hydrogen and Ammonia Supply Chain Demonstrator in Port Lincoln.

According to an analysis by the SUN DAY Campaign of data just released by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), natural gas dominated new electrical generating capacity in 2018. However, renewable energy sources (i.e., biomass, geothermal, hydropower, solar, wind) seem poised to swamp fossil fuels as new generating capacity is added over the next three years.

Sempra Renewables jointly owns all of part of seven wind farms and one battery installation in seven states. 

This week, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced that rather than investing in the Haynes, Harbor and Scattergood natural gas power plants to meet the requirements of a 2010 law related to a practice known as once through cooling, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) will phase them out in favor of renewable energy.

The 2019 Sustainable Energy in America factbook was released this week by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BloombergNEF) and the Business Council for Sustainable Energy (BCSE). The factbook highlights a number of key trends in sustainable and renewable energy growth, emissions and jobs in the sector. Take a glance at the six charts below to learn more.

The Jackson Smart Energy District aims to achieve the parent firm’s 2040 clean energy goals some 15 to 20 years earlier. Those goals include producing 40 percent of the district’s energy needs from on-site renewable sources.

This week ComEd said that it’s furthering innovation in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood with the installation of renewable energy powered lights along the walkway to the Beethoven Elementary School. Bronzeville is home to the first “microgrid cluster” in the United States.

South Africa plans to expand use of renewable power as the coal-dependent nation expects traditional, centralized generation plants to “disappear,” Energy Minister Jeff Radebe said.

As renewable energy proliferates, major players like Hitachi, ABB and GE are seeing value in combining grid and generation business units.

In late February, Hawaiian Electric Companies announced that they have achieved a consolidated 27 percent renewable portfolio standard in 2018, even with the loss of Hawaii Island’s geothermal resource for most of the year following the Kilauea volcanic eruption. Hawaii has a goal of reaching 100 percent renewable energy by 2045.

As of the end of 2018, China’s renewable energy installation capacity had reached 728 GW, an increase of 12 percent from a year earlier, according to statistics released by China’s National Energy Administration. This breaks down into 352 GW (up 2.5 percent) for hydro, 184 GW (up 12.4 percent) for wind, 174 GW (up 34 percent) for photovoltaic (PV) and 17.8 GW (up 20.7 percent) for biomass. Renewable energy accounted for 38.3 percent of the country’s total installed power capacity, a rise of 1.7 percentage points.

New Hampshire is preparing to follow the lead of other New England states and create a system for procuring renewable energy on behalf of residents.

Findings in a recently published European Union report showed that the Baltic States of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia make up over 30 percent of the EU countries that have already met their 2020 renewable energy targets.

The Trump administration is again seeking severe cuts to the U.S. Energy Department division charged with renewable energy and energy efficiency research, according to a department official familiar with the plan.

The Indian government’s Union Cabinet, chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has approved measures to promote the hydropower sector that include declaring large hydropower projects to be part of the non-solar renewable purchase obligation (RPO).

When Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, it cut short nearly 3,000 lives, displaced thousands of families, and subjected the commonwealth to the longest energy blackout in U.S. history. This tragedy invited a new vision for Puerto Rico’s battered electric grid, and I hoped that a central tenet of the rebuilding effort would be an aggressive move toward safe, abundant and resilient clean energy.

What happens when a famously left-leaning city dives into the buttoned-down business of electric utilities? San Francisco may soon find out.

On Friday, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed the state’s groundbreaking Energy Transition Act (ETA) into law, meaning that by 2045, the state should be fully powered by clean, carbon-free electricity.

It was a milestone deal, not for its size but for the number of parties. In January, five big companies, each with differing energy requirements and renewable strategies, agreed to pool their investment and collectively purchase 42.5 megawatts from a North Carolina solar project.

In a first for the country, Germany generated 54.5 percent of electricity from renewable energy in March 2019. This is according to data collected by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems.

Recently there has been a great deal of interest in a ‘Green New Deal’ for the United States. It is seen as a way to solve pressing environmental, employment and economic problems with a single comprehensive plan. Modeled on Roosevelt’s New Deal, which created jobs, invested in large infrastructure projects, and pulled the US out of the Great Depression, the Green New Deal is a modern version of that program, but with green energy investments, 21st century job training, and deficit reduction as the key components.

Cities and renewable electricity have, respectively, become the habitat and energy of choice globally. The two are increasingly inseparable. Urbanization and electrification trends have turned cities and the grid into leading platforms for human activity, presenting unique opportunities for today’s utilities to partner with municipalities to achieve their smart city goals.

The Redford Center, a California-based non-profit co-founded in 2005 by Robert Redford and his son, James, announced that every morning, from April 15-22, 2019, the organization will post an episode a day of "Renewable Therapy for Climate Anxiety," a conversational mini-series featuring Filmmaker, James Redford, and Matthew Nordan, clean energy investor and managing partner at MNL Partners. In each two-minute installment, the pair explores questions that nag environmentalists when it comes to renewable energy. Watch the first episode below.

This weekend at its “Earth Day Every Day Fair,” Green Mountain Power announced an energy vision to have a 100 percent carbon free energy supply by 2025 and 100 percent renewable energy by 2030. The utility said the move is among the most aggressive carbon targets for a utility of GMP’s size in the country.

This week global energy and infrastructure group, Eversheds Sutherland, announced that it helped Ball Corporation secure two virtual power purchase agreements (VPPAs) – one wind and one solar – for a total of 388 MW of new renewable energy. According to Ball, these agreements will allow the company to power 100 percent of its corporate, packaging and aerospace operations electricity load in North America with renewable energy by the end of 2021.

Energy advisory and certification body DNV GL has launched a new digital platform for renewable energy power purchase agreements.

ComEd sees a significant role for energy storage on Illinois’ electric grid as the state works toward realizing its ambitious renewable goals.

Last year was the first time since 2001 that growth in renewable power capacity failed to increase year on year.

As of 2018, the city of Los Angeles boasted close to 350 MW of installed local solar power, according to reports. Its solar capacity increased some 44 percent year over year.

This week energy developer BayWa r.e. published its Energy Report 2019, which surveyed 1,200 European corporations about their attitudes toward renewable energy.