Natural Gas Boom Won’t Stall U.S. Renewables

The briefing examines the impact of the U.S. natural gas boom on renewable energy, noting that while low spot prices hinder utility-scale project financing in the near term, distributed solar PV and falling wind costs will sustain the transition.

• Hydraulic fracturing has created an oversupplied domestic natural gas market, leading to low prices that make it difficult for new utility-scale renewable projects to secure the fixed-price contracts necessary for financing.
• Natural gas prices are expected to face upward pressure from supply-side factors like increased regulation and underperforming wells, as well as demand-side factors including LNG exports and the replacement of coal in electrical generation.
• Wind power is becoming increasingly competitive; with turbine prices declining by an average of 14 percent per year since the mid-1980s, it is projected to compete head-on with wholesale natural gas in more locations by 2016.
• Distributed solar photovoltaic (PV) development is less impacted by low wholesale gas prices because it competes against rising retail power rates rather than wholesale prices.
• Solar PV installation costs have fallen by more than 50 percent since 2007, leading to grid parity in regions with high retail electricity rates, such as Hawaii and California.

APA

RMI (2012). Natural Gas Boom Won’t Stall U.S. Renewables. https://rmi.org/resources/natural_gas_boom_wont_stall_us_renewables/

Chicago

RMI. Natural Gas Boom Won’t Stall U.S. Renewables. 2012. https://rmi.org/resources/natural_gas_boom_wont_stall_us_renewables/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=RMI |title=Natural Gas Boom Won’t Stall U.S. Renewables |date=16 February 2012 |url=https://rmi.org/resources/natural_gas_boom_wont_stall_us_renewables/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{rmi2012natural, author = {{RMI}}, title = {{Natural Gas Boom Won’t Stall U.S. Renewables}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2012}, month = feb, url = {https://rmi.org/resources/natural_gas_boom_wont_stall_us_renewables/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }