Advanced Energy Perspectives

The Business Council for Sustainable Energy (BCSE) released its 2021 “SustainableEnergy in America Factbook” on February 18, providing an overview of U.S. energy market trends with a focus on sustainable energy. Amid a year of uncertainties from COVID-19, the Factbook demonstrates notable resilience in what it considers the sustainable energy sector. Although many market shifts will prove transient as global circumstances gradually return to normal, some industry changes are expected to have lasting impact. Here are the key Factbook takeaways:

Last week, the Business Council for Sustainable Energy (BCSE) and Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) released their 8th annual “2020 Sustainable Energy in America Factbook,” revealing a decade-long transformation of the U.S. energy sector to cleaner advanced energy resources. The report shows that the United States experienced extraordinary change in how we produce, deliver, manage, and consume energy as we shifted to cleaner, more efficient resources since 2010. During the same period, the economy grew more energy efficient, more energy secure, and less carbon intensive, with the American consumer becoming the primary beneficiary. Building on last year’s findings, the 2020 Factbook comes up with some interesting conclusions, some of them self-evident, others more surprising:

This is one in a series of excerpts from the Advanced Energy Now 2019 Market Report, prepared for AEE by Navigant Research.

Advanced Electricity Generation is now the second largest advanced energy segment globally, having been displaced as the biggest by Advanced Transportation in 2017. At $453 billion, Advanced Electricity Generation was down slightly in 2018. Global revenue has been largely flat for the past two years, dropping roughly $1 billion each year since 2016, but the total masks significant growth in solar and hydropower in 2017, nuclear power in 2018, and wind in both years. In the United States, Advanced Electricity Generation continues to be the second largest segment of the advanced energy market and is still growing strongly, up 8% in 2018, with revenue growth in wind and solar, while natural gas turbines held steady. Over the 2011-18 period, the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for Advanced Electricity Generation revenue was -1% globally, while for U.S. revenue compound annual growth was 6%.

This is one in a series of excerpts from the Advanced Energy Now 2019 Market Report, prepared for AEE by Navigant Research.

Advanced Fuel Delivery revenue – here quantified for just Fueling Stations serving natural gas and hydrogen vehicles – remained essentially flat globally in 2018, at $991 million, after 4% increase in 2017. (For Charging Infrastructure for electric vehicles, see Electricity Distribution and Management.) In the United States, the market for Advanced Fuel Delivery grew 5% in 2018, after three years of declines. Overall, spending on natural gas and hydrogen fueling stations has shrunk by more than half worldwide since 2011, and by one quarter in the United States, and by even more compared with the peak years of 2014 and 2012, respectively. The Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) for Advanced Fuel Delivery revenue was -11% from 2011 to 2018 globally and -4% in the United States.

This is one in a series of excerpts from the Advanced Energy Now 2019 Market Report, prepared for AEE by Navigant Research.

Advanced Industry, the sixth largest advanced energy segment both globally and domestically, contains two subsegments: Manufacturing Machinery and Process Equipment and Industrial Combined Heat and Power (CHP). Manufacturing Machinery and Process Equipment is tracked through sales of industrial energy management systems, which are software and services for energy management within an industrial facility or across an enterprise to meet efficiency, cost savings, and sustainability targets while maintaining optimal operation of production processes.

Global Advanced Industry revenue reached $54.5 billion in 2018, a 12% increase over 2017, building on 11% growth the year before. This is an acceleration over previous years of steady growth driven by the expansion of manufacturing machinery and process equipment caused by increased global production and the adoption of advanced technology in industrial processes. Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) for global Advanced Industry revenue over the 2011-18 period was 9%. Growth in U.S. revenue was even greater over the period since 2011, more than doubling in that time, with CAGR of 12%, but essentially flat in 2018.