Cell Reports Sustainability (Jun 2024)
Climate and air quality benefits of wind and solar generation in the United States from 2019 to 2022
Abstract
Summary: Wind and solar generation reduce electric sector pollutant emissions and associated climate-related damages and air quality-related health damages. Here, we assess these emission reductions, focusing on carbon dioxide (CO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and nitrogen oxides (NOx), and incorporate recent estimates of global warming costs and pollution health costs to estimate the dollar value of the associated climate and air quality benefits. From 2019 through 2022, wind and solar generation in the United States provided $249 billion of climate and air quality benefits based on central estimates. In 2022, the normalized benefits were $143/MWh and $100/MWh for wind and solar, respectively, or $36/MWh and $17/MWh when only including air quality benefits. Combined, wind and solar generation led to 1,200 to 1,600 fewer premature mortalities in 2022 (based on a 5th–95th percentile range). Our approach is based on simple, publicly available data, and it includes a sophisticated treatment of uncertainty. Science for society: Wind and solar electricity generation are critical for global decarbonization. Government support for wind and solar generators is often compared with their climate and air quality benefits. To accurately assess these benefits, assessments must be updated to reflect changes to the electricity system and to incorporate the newest research assessing the costs of emissions. For example, recent research finds much higher (>3×) societal costs to carbon emissions compared with commonly used metrics even just a few years ago, and important advances within air pollution epidemiology research have occurred in that time frame as well.We develop a new and reproducible approach to estimate wind and solar climate and air quality benefits in the US using relatively simple and publicly available data and incorporating the recent advances described above. We find benefits are larger than most prior estimates, and they are larger than generation costs, subsidies, and electricity market value.
