By Laura Tierney, Vice President, BCSE

In 2024, U.S. power generation reached its highest volume in two decades, driven by growth in renewable energy technologies and by stable natural gas generation capacity. These energy growth sectors face favorable market conditions as the United States eyes rising energy demand.

That’s the key takeaway from the 2025 Sustainable Energy in America Factbook. Produced annually by the Business Council for Sustainable Energy (BCSE) and BloombergNEF, the Factbook tracks energy market and policy trends in the United States, examining how energy sectors performed in 2024 and over the past decade.

Here are some of the top sustainable energy trends from 2024:

 

1)  The United States is on the cusp of a new era of energy expansion. Energy demand, energy productivity, and the U.S. economy all grew in 2024.

The economy is expanding, and U.S. energy productivity is increasing alongside it. In 2024, the U.S. economy expanded 2.8%, while primary energy consumption grew 0.5% year on year, resulting in a 2.3% increase in U.S. energy productivity. Over the past 10 years, U.S. energy productivity has increased 29%.

At the same time, new trends impacting demand include the onshoring of manufacturing, electrification of end-use applications, and increased data center demand for artificial intelligence. Corporate procurement of renewable energy set a record in 2024, contracting 28 gigawatts (GW), up 34% from 20.9 GW in 2022. Tech companies spearheaded this growth, accounting for 84% of overall deal activity.

 

2)  BCSE’s diversified, sustainable energy portfolio is ready to meet this increasing demand.

In 2024, U.S. power generation reached its highest level in two decades, increasing 3.3% year on year. Natural gas and renewables provide two thirds (67%) of U.S. power, up from 47% just a decade ago.

The contribution of renewables – including wind, solar, biomass, waste-to-energy, geothermal, and hydropower – rose at the fastest pace among all sources of energy consumed across the economy, rising 10.2% year on year.

48.4 GW of new utility-scale power generation and storage capacity was commissioned in 2024 – the highest total since 2003. Wind and solar accounted for 71% of this expansion, at 34.4 GW. Natural gas capacity additions totaled 2.4 GW.

In 2024, the generation from coal dropped 4.4% year on year. In the past decade, coal-fired generation has seen a steady decline from 33% to 15% of the U.S. power mix.

 

3)  By deploying these homegrown sustainable energy solutions, the United States is building a competitive and secure national economy.

Sustainable energy investments are bringing manufacturing – and jobs – back to America. In 2024, $8 billion was invested across supply chain segments for the hydrogen electrolyzer, wind, solar and battery sectors. Jobs in sustainable energy grew 4.2% in 2023, more than twice the rate of the overall economy. More than 3 million Americans are part of today’s sustainable energy workforce.

At the same time, the proportion of U.S. personal spending on energy is near historic lows. While regional differences in retail prices remain large, U.S. consumer spending on energy – including natural gas, electricity, and motor fuel – as a share of total personal expenditures fell 0.3% points in 2024 to 3.8%. U.S. industrial power prices were also the third lowest among major economies.

 

4)  With continued investment in sustainable energy, the United States is poised to lead the world in technology and innovation.

Global investment in sustainable energy once again shattered records, soaring to over $2 trillion. The United States deployed $338 billion in financing for energy technologies, including renewable energy, EVs, and power grid investment. China continued to lead the global market, with $818 billion of investment in 2024, a 20% increase year on year.

Thanks to investments in innovation, the United States is the second largest energy storage market in the world after China, commissioning a record 11.9 GW of battery storage capacity in 2024. Pumped hydropower energy storage remains the largest source of storage currently available on the U.S. power grid in terms of storage capacity.

 

5)  These investments are more urgent than ever, as extreme weather events intensified in 2024, and U.S. greenhouse gas emissions increased.

The United States continues to face extreme weather events that threaten energy reliability. In 2024, the country experienced 27 climate-related disasters, the second highest number of such events since 2010. The total cost associated with these events nearly doubled, reaching $182.7 billion.

U.S. economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions rose slightly in 2024, increasing 0.5% year on year. Transport remained the largest emitting sector of the U.S. economy in 2024. This was followed by industry, which is the fastest growing source of emissions, accounting for 89% of the 2024 increase. As of 2024, the United States has reduced its economy-wide emissions 15.8% below 2005 levels, and power sector emissions have dropped 41%.

 

6)  As we move forward, the progress of sustainable energy in America faces obstacles – which can be overcome with federal policy support.

Maintaining the U.S. federal government’s energy sector investments and energy tax credits will enable forward momentum to continue. In 2024, 60 new clean tech manufacturing sites were announced, increasing to 264 total announcements since August 2022, when federal energy tax credits kickstarted private investment in homegrown energy. Existing tax credits benefit a broad range of technologies, including biofuels, biomass, carbon capture and storage, combined heat and power, energy efficiency, fuel cells, hydrogen, hydropower, natural gas, nuclear, solar, waste-to-energy, and wind power technologies, among others.

Nevertheless, U.S. energy infrastructure needs reform of regulatory timelines and processes, to accelerate the pace of U.S. energy expansion and meet rising demand. In 2024 alone, 317 GW of new capacity applied to interconnect in the seven U.S. independent system operators, representing nearly a third of the current installed U.S. power system. On federal lands, it can take roughly four years to construct utility-scale wind and solar projects, seven to ten years to obtain a mining permit, and ten years to build a new transmission line.

 

The 2025 Sustainable Energy in America Factbook is free to download at bcse.org/factbook. Dive deeper into the facts by checking out the Executive Summary, Key Trends, and Additional Resources.