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This summary is part of Beyond the Beltway: A Report on State Energy and Climate Policies produced by the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment at Berkeley Law
Pennsylvania has a fairly pitiful profile in terms of renewable energy. As of 2015, it got about 4% of its power from renewables, and only about half of that from wind and solar. Nearly all of the remainder was from nuclear (37%), coal (30%) and natural gas (28%). Perhaps not coincidentally, the state was the nation’s third-largest coal producer and the second largest natural gas producer in 2016, largely due to fracking. Things do seem to be shifting a bit away from coal: by 2017, natural gas had become a significantly greater source of electric power. The state exports a great deal of electricity to the mid-Atlantic region. Renewables have been expanding significantly, but from a very low baseline.
Pennsylvania politics is complicated because the state is broken into three regions: the east, which aligns with neighbors New York and New Jersey; the west, which aligns with the Midwest; and the middle, which is strongly conservative. The governorship has flipped back and forth between parties recently. The state legislature is under firm GOP control, as it has been for twenty-five years apart from Democratic control of the House from 2006-2010.
Given the state’s political situation, it may not be surprising that Pennsylvania’s energy picture looks more like Virginia or the Carolinas than like New York or New Jersey. However, as with those Southern states, some degree of change does some to be underway. In 2004, the state adopted a renewable portfolio standard of 18% for 2020, but only 8% must come from solar, wind and similar sources. The solar target was very low, and it was further undercut because utilities preferred to buy solar credits from out-of-state companies. Recently passed legislation does begin to address the latter problem, but the state has a long way to go.