In 2018, the advanced transportation sector saw both the largest increase and the fastest growth (34%) in the U.S advanced energy market. Leading this growth was revenue from plug-in Electric Vehicles (EVs), mainly comprised of the light-duty market. Just as important is the burgeoning market of medium- and heavy-duty vehicles (MD/HDVs), which include the likes of school buses, city transit buses, delivery trucks, and garbage trucks. Medium- and heavy-duty EV adoption is expected to increase globally, reaching over 5 million vehicles on the road by 2030. Some analysts predict that half of the world’s municipal bus fleet will be electric by 2025. Get ready for EVs to go big!

Last week, the Ohio General Assembly passed House Bill 6, a bill that provides customer-funded subsidies to uneconomic coal and nuclear power plants while gutting the state’s clean energy programs. HB 6 is the culmination of a five year assault on advanced energy in Ohio, which included two failed attempts to repeal the state’s Renewable Portfolio (RPS) and Energy Efficiency Resource Standards (EERS), a two-year freeze of those same standards, enactment of the most onerous wind siting restrictions in the nation, and more than two years of debate on how to bail out coal and nuclear plants that could not compete in the market. When Gov. Mike DeWine signed the bill almost immediately, Ohio’s march to the past was complete, making the Buckeye State stand out among its Midwest neighbors, as well as states across the country, in going backward, rather than forward, in energy policy.

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%.

Just before the California Legislature adjourned for Summer Recess, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a historic wildfire fund package seeking to balance the welfare of  wildfire victims, investor-owned utilities (starting with PG&E, which is in bankruptcy proceedings due to its wildfire liabilities), and utility employees with a commitment to uphold California’s advanced energy leadership. The package navigated the formal legislative process in a matter of days to meet the Newsom Administration’s declared deadline of July 12, and most importantly, just in time to avert the looming threat of credit rating downgrades for the state’s other two investor-owned utilities, San Diego Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison.

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.