**Status:**Published
**Citation:**Bistline, J; Young, D. 2019. “Economic Drivers of Wind and Solar Penetration in the U.S.” Environmental Research Letters.
Understanding the potential contribution of wind and solar technologies is a key strategic question for many stakeholders and has important implications for decarbonizing the electric sector. However, considerable disagreement exists as to which combinations of drivers could enable deep penetration of these technologies. Existing analyses have variously cited ongoing cost declines, policy support, inter-regional transmission, and/or energy storage availability as factors that could drive significant wind and solar deployment, but most studies consider a single factor in isolation and do not provide rigorous support for understanding which combinations could underpin a leading role for wind and solar. This paper addresses this gap by undertaking a systematic sensitivity analysis using a state-of-the-art energy-economic model to comprehensively evaluate the relative magnitudes of five key factors that may influence future wind and solar deployment in the United States.
We find future wind and solar capital costs and carbon policy are the dominant factors, causing the average wind and solar share to vary by 38 and 31 percentage points, respectively. Transmission and storage availability have much smaller effects, causing the average share to vary by no more than 15 and 5 percentage points, respectively. The variable renewable share of electricity generation never reaches 100% nationally in any scenario even with low-cost storage, as decreasing marginal returns at higher deployments eventually outpace cost reductions. Although capital cost reductions for variable renewable technologies are a key driver, deployment is a complex function of many factors, so ultimate market diffusion is uncertain and requires detailed analysis to evaluate. Despite this uncertainty, this analysis indicates relative magnitudes of drivers for wind and solar deployment and also potential barriers where further technology RD&D and analytical tools are needed.
Link to Journal Publication: Environmental Research Letters