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Ah, March. A time of change, of budding flowers and longer days — and of inescapable quantities of faculty basketball.
Now, right here at Canary Media, we don’t cowl basketball. We cowl the vitality transition. But, you understand, in a culturally related method. Add these info collectively, and what you find yourself with is a March Madness competitors centered round U.S. vitality tendencies.
Our competitors begins subsequent week. But first, we’d like your assist in determining the matchups for our vitality transition bracket.
Check out the checklist of tendencies — or groups — beneath. Then rank them in accordance with how vital you assume each is to the vitality transition utilizing this fast survey. Easy peasy. Next week we’ll share a finalized bracket based mostly on these survey responses, and also you’ll be capable of vote on the head-to-head matchups of vitality tendencies (e.g., photo voltaic progress vs. grid battery progress).
Get to know the contenders:
Heat pumps outselling gasoline furnaces
Heat pumps, the two-way air conditioners which are very important to cleansing up house heating, have outsold gasoline furnaces for 2 years working. According to knowledge from the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute, Americans purchased 21 % extra warmth pumps in 2023 than the next-most common heating equipment, fossil gasoline furnaces. That’s the most important lead warmth pumps have ever had on fossil-fuel furnaces.
US clear vitality manufacturing growth
The Inflation Reduction Act kicked off a growth in U.S. clear vitality manufacturing. Since the legislation handed in August 2022, over 100 new clean-energy manufacturing services or manufacturing unit expansions have been introduced, totaling greater than $70 billion in non-public funding and bringing in 1000’s of latest jobs.
Record excessive local weather climatetech funding
Follow the cash: Last yr, U.S. funding within the vitality transition reached a complete of $239 billion, a record-breaking determine that’s 38 % larger than the 2022 complete. Almost all of final yr’s funding in climatetech got here from non-public sources, which have been incentivized by the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to spend large on clear vitality.
The speedy progress of EVs
For the primary time ever, greater than 1 million absolutely electrical autos have been bought within the U.S. final yr. It’s a main milestone, and it comes as hybrids are additionally taking off and stealing market share away from typical gas-powered vehicles. Last yr, 16 % of latest auto gross sales have been EVs or hybrids.
Clean vitality in, gasoline crops out for brand new electrical energy
Clean vitality is formally mainstream. The U.S. electrical energy business is selecting clear vitality for nearly all its new energy plant additions this yr. To put it plainly, meaning the nation is constructing method extra photo voltaic and battery storage tasks than it’s gasoline crops.
The surge in grid batteries
Grid batteries retailer surplus renewables and make the grid extra dependable — and so they’re rising like loopy within the U.S. Thanks largely to California and Texas, which want a bunch extra batteries to take in all of the photo voltaic they’ve constructed, the U.S. might double its grid battery fleet this yr.
The reducing price of renewables
Unlike fossil fuels, renewable vitality prices have fallen and are projected to maintain falling. That’s as a result of the applied sciences are using on “studying curves,” that means that for each cumulative doubling of the deployed tech, its price declines by a quantifiable share. Over the previous 40 years, the typical studying fee has been 20% for photo voltaic and 13% for wind.
Next-generation geothermal breakthroughs
