Renewable energy production surged by 21 percent last year

According to the US Energy Information Administration Data, 2020 was a great year for green energy, producing 21% of all energy in the United States.

That includes wind, hydroelectric, solar, biomass, and geothermal energy – all coming second to natural gas as a source of power.

“We have seen growth across the country,” said Paul Lesure, President of Green Mountain Solar. “I think that is happening is a lot of larger businesses, you’ll read Amazon and Apple and even some utility companies are really adopting it,” Lesure adds.

With solar up around 9% last year and wind energy up 14% in usage from 2019 to 2020, renewables such as solar and wind are on the rise.

“We have seen a great adoption at the residential and small-scale commercial level because people are seeing their neighbors do it. Seeing other businesses doing it and realizing how there is an economic value here” said Lesure.

Small scale installations of solar-like rooftop panels that feed into electricity networks grew by 19 percent, while larger utility-scale solar projects increased by 26 percent from 2019 to 2020.

“Five, six years ago we were one of the leaders in the country in terms of solar installed per capita, since then the public utility commission and department of public service has started to put up more berries and take away incentives for people going solar,” said Lesure. “So even though we are seeing the national trends grow, we are not seeing it grow as much locally.”