Note: Renewable Energy includes geothermal, hydropower, solar, wind, wood, and waste. Fossil Fuel Energy includes coal, natural gas, and all petroleum products. Other energy includes nuclear and imports.
Data Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, State Energy Data System (SEDS).
Analysis by CEC Economics
Highlights
- Renewable energy consumption growth continues to outpace that of fossil fuels and other sources for both electric and non-electric consumption, growing by 53.4% and 125.1%, respectively, between 2013 to 2023.118 In particular, the rapid growth in renewable energy consumption from non-electric consumption is due to increasingly more households using solar as the heating fuel.
- For the first time, renewable energy consumption surpassed 1,000 trillion British Thermal Units (BTU) in 2023 — reaching 1,065 trillion BTU and up 20.9% from 2022’s 881 trillion BTU. However, most of that increase came from electricity consumption from hydroelectric generation, which is prone to drought conditions. Otherwise, solar is the only source where renewable energy for electricity consumption has increased consistently over time—up 5.7% from 2022 to 2023. Meanwhile, consumption from wind fell by 4.2% and by 5.8% for wood and waste. Consumption from geothermal was relatively steady at +0.8%. As the economy recovered, fossil fuel consumption in California has rebounded (for electricity and non-electricity) since 2020. Although non-electricity fossil fuel consumption rose modestly by 0.3% from 2022 to 2023, electricity fossil fuel consumption fell 1.9%, resulting in an overall flatlined consumption change (+0.0%) from 2022 to 2023.
118 This includes biodiesel and fuel ethanol as well as non-RPS eligible sources such as conventional hydroelectric. The State Energy Data Systems (SEDS) does not distinguish conventional hydroelectric from small hydro.
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