Monday, September 15, 2025
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
  • Terms & Conditions
Environmental Magazine
Advertisement
  • Home
  • News
  • Climate Change
  • Energy
  • Recycling
  • Air
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Water
No Result
View All Result
Environmental Magazine
  • Home
  • News
  • Climate Change
  • Energy
  • Recycling
  • Air
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Water
No Result
View All Result
Environmental Magazine
No Result
View All Result
Home Energy

Pennsylvania Lags Many Other States in Adoption of Renewable Energy, Report Says

October 25, 2024
in Energy
A A

Pennsylvania is making the transition to solar and wind energy at a slower pace than many other states and is nearly dead last on energy-efficiency growth, according to a new survey. 

Federal data analyzed by the nonprofit Environment America found that Pennsylvania’s best showing on the energy transition compared to the nation over the past decade came in electric vehicle registrations and EV charging ports. Growth in those areas helped Pennsylvania rank 17th out of 50 states plus the District of Columbia, despite the lagging performance on renewable energy. That rank is unchanged from last year’s report.

“We’re making small steps in the right direction but we’re being outpaced by the nation and most of our neighbors,” said Ellie Kerns, a clean-energy advocate for PennEnvironment, the state’s affiliate for Environment America, which published the data on Thursday. 

Pennsylvania, second only to Texas on natural gas production, was second-to-last in the nation for growth—or, rather, lack of growth—in both energy efficiency and wind power. 

Election 2024

Explore the latest news about what’s at stake for the climate during this election season.

Energy saved from efficiency efforts dropped nearly 60 percent in the state over the past decade while growing modestly nationwide, Environment America said. Wind power production decreased 8 percent in Pennsylvania while more than doubling nationally.

Solar energy production in the state quadrupled. But that put Pennsylvania behind 28 other states. Nationally, solar production rose more than eightfold.

The state’s best ranking came in growth of EV charging ports, better than all but 10 states. Pennsylvania drivers, meanwhile, registered some 64,000 EVs in 2023, a 43-fold increase in the last decade that put the state 14th in the nation. 

Pennsylvania ranked 19th for the last decade’s growth in battery storage capacity. But all of that happened in a single year, 2016, with nothing since.

Environmental advocates discussing the new data on Thursday called on state lawmakers to pass the Pennsylvania Reliable Energy Sustainability Standard. The bill, introduced by Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, would increase the renewable share of electricity consumed to 35 percent by 2035. Only 8 percent is required by the current Alternative Energy Portfolio Standard, enacted 20 years ago.

“We need to do that if we’re going to remain competitive,” said state Sen. Steve Santasiero, a Democrat, referring to Shapiro’s bill during a video call to launch the report. “We need to do it if, over time, we’re going to be able to provide both our residents as well as our industry with the energy they need.”

Rob Altenburg, senior director for energy and climate at the nonprofit PennFuture, said the report represents the latest evidence that Pennsylvania is lagging the rest of the U.S. in its adoption of renewable energy sources.

He said Pennsylvania’s renewable energy requirement is too low; the state has no legal requirement for community solar; applications for commercial-scale solar installations face bureaucratic delays at the grid operator PJM; and there’s no mandate to encourage faster adoption of EVs.

That means car dealers have fewer EVs options than they do in states—such as neighboring Delaware—that have EV mandates, and the available models are often the more expensive ones on which the dealers can make more money, Altenburg said.

“Car dealers tend to put more effort into marketing EVs in states that have EV mandates,” he said. “People say they want to buy an EV but dealers say they are not getting them because there’s no PA mandate.”

Altenberg attributed the latest decline in Pennsylvania’s energy efficiency to the state’s insufficient incentives. “You would expect to see a decline unless you were incentivizing energy efficiency projects at a greater and greater scale, and we’re not doing that,” he said.

But clean energy upgrades can be made at the local level, said Mike Ksiazek, a member of the board of supervisors in Middletown, Bucks County. Helped by funding from the state Department of Environmental Protection and the utility PECO, the township has installed eight EV chargers, including four fast chargers, as part of a local climate action plan that began in 2021, he said.

“This is one step toward providing access to EV infrastructure, and one step toward our broader goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions locally,” he said.

About This Story

Perhaps you noticed: This story, like all the news we publish, is free to read. That’s because Inside Climate News is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. We do not charge a subscription fee, lock our news behind a paywall, or clutter our website with ads. We make our news on climate and the environment freely available to you and anyone who wants it.

That’s not all. We also share our news for free with scores of other media organizations around the country. Many of them can’t afford to do environmental journalism of their own. We’ve built bureaus from coast to coast to report local stories, collaborate with local newsrooms and co-publish articles so that this vital work is shared as widely as possible.

Two of us launched ICN in 2007. Six years later we earned a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, and now we run the oldest and largest dedicated climate newsroom in the nation. We tell the story in all its complexity. We hold polluters accountable. We expose environmental injustice. We debunk misinformation. We scrutinize solutions and inspire action.

Donations from readers like you fund every aspect of what we do. If you don’t already, will you support our ongoing work, our reporting on the biggest crisis facing our planet, and help us reach even more readers in more places?

Please take a moment to make a tax-deductible donation. Every one of them makes a difference.

Thank you,

ShareTweetSharePinSendShare

Related Articles

Energy

Department of Energy Allocates $134 million for Fusion Funding

September 11, 2025
Energy

Utility-Scale Solar Can Withstand Severe Hailstorms. Here’s How

September 11, 2025
Energy

Solar Power Gave the Formerly Incarcerated Hope in NJ. Federal Cuts Are Taking it Back

September 11, 2025
Energy

The Whimbrel and the Wind Turbines: Capable of Coexistence?

September 8, 2025
Energy

A California Network of Black Churches Is Embracing Solar Energy, EV Charging

September 7, 2025
Energy

As Trump Pushes Liquified Natural Gas Exports, Residents in Pennsylvania Towns Push Back to Stop a Proposed LNG Terminal

August 30, 2025

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recommended

In California, a Push to Decommission Gas Lines in Low-Income Neighborhoods Moves Forward

June 22, 2025

Study Finds High Levels of Hydrogen Sulfide in Central Texas Oilfield

September 20, 2024

Don't miss it

Fossil Fuels

Riding the High From Data Centers, the Grid Cannot Kick Its Gas Habit

September 14, 2025
Fossil Fuels

As Congress Takes a New Swing at Bipartisan Permitting Reform, Environmental Groups Are Calling Foul

September 13, 2025
Fossil Fuels

House Republicans’ Use of Little-Known Law to Strike Down Public Land Plans Could Be Pandora’s Box Moment

September 12, 2025
Air

Beyond the filter: what’s happening in industrial air pollution management?

September 11, 2025
Fossil Fuels

Trump Administration Moves to Dismantle Conservation as an Official Use of Public Lands

September 10, 2025
Fossil Fuels

World’s Largest Fossil Fuel and Cement Producers Are Responsible for About Half the Intensity of Recent Heat Waves, New Study Shows

September 10, 2025
Environmental Magazine

Environmental Magazine, Latest News, Opinions, Analysis Environmental Magazine. Follow us for more news about Enviroment and climate change from all around the world.

Learn more

Sections

  • Activism
  • Air
  • Climate Change
  • Energy
  • Fossil Fuels
  • News
  • Uncategorized
  • Water

Topics

Activism Air Climate Change Energy Fossil Fuels News Uncategorized Water

Recent News

Riding the High From Data Centers, the Grid Cannot Kick Its Gas Habit

September 14, 2025

As Congress Takes a New Swing at Bipartisan Permitting Reform, Environmental Groups Are Calling Foul

September 13, 2025

© 2023 Environmental Magazine. All rights reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • Climate Change
  • Energy
  • Recycling
  • Air
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Water

© 2023 Environmental Magazine. All rights reserved.

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.