The Start of a Trillion Dollar Renewable Energy Market?

Posted by: JackSawyer // Student

Leaders of the U.S., Canada, and Mexico have come to an agreement to increase their consumption of renewable energy sources to 50% by 2025! The agreement could signal the start of a massive expansion for the renewable energy market. The big component to this deal is cross border transmission lines. What this would allow for is energy from renewable sources to move around more freely and to where it is needed most. Subsequently, the introduction of cross border lines would expand the clean energy market into new areas of North America.

Creating new transmission lines is an important foundation for clean energy infrastructure, it would allow for renewable energy to reach places that once did not have the right conditions for renewable sources. Installing these lines would increase the demand and subsequently give companies an excuse to create a massive supply. However, after the lines have been laid, there is a lot more work that needs to be done. You would need to build new renewable energy plants and storage facilities to better handle to increased demand for renewable energy. By building up the proper infrastructure, the whole of North America would be able to have access to clean cheap energy. Cross border transmission lines opens up a huge opportunity for the renewable energy market to expand and make it more accessible.

Recently I wrote a discussion piece on how California was struggling to find uses for its excess renewable energy because of a lack of infrastructure to transport it anywhere else. One solution they had was to send it to a neighboring state, however with cross border lines, California would be given options to send it to multiple locations and not lose money.

What do you think of cross border transmission lines? Will they allow for the three countries to meet a 50% renewable energy goal by 2025? Will this agreement have a profound effect on the green market?

Hoium, Travis. "A Trillion Dollar Renewable Energy Market Might Have Just Opened Up in North America." The Motley Fool. N.p., 4 July 2016. Web. 04 July 2016. http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/07/04/a-trillion-dollar-renewable-energy-market-just-ope.aspx>.