By Ian Campbell

Data feature produced by S&P Global Market Intelligence research groups in cooperation with the news department to highlight emerging trends and topics of interest.

The market share of renewable generation in the United States rose to 13.4% in 2015 from 13.1% the year prior. While the overall increase in renewable generation was small on a percentage basis, shifts in the fuel type breakout were noteworthy. The 0.3 percentage point increase in renewable generation was derived from percentage point increases of 0.3 in wind generation and a 0.2 increase in solar generation. It was offset by a 0.2 percentage point decrease in hydro generation.

In 2014, the largest portions of the renewable market share were held by water, at 48.2%, and wind, at 33.7%. This was supplemented by 11.9% attributable to biomass, 2.9% to geothermal and 3.3% to solar. In 2015, every renewable fuel type saw an increase except water, with solar and wind energy gaining 1.5 percentage points and 1 percentage point, respectively, in market share. These increases were driven by capacity additions of approximately 3,000 MW for solar and 8,000 MW for wind.

In total, 36,777 MW of new renewable capacity is scheduled to come online next year, though typically some of this will be delayed or canceled by developers. Solar has 17,990 MW scheduled to come online in 2016 — 5x more than was installed the previous year — while wind has over 18,127 MW expected to come online in 2016, double the amount installed in 2015.

Hydroelectric power continues to hold the lion's share of renewable generation, at 45.7% in 2015. However, barely any new capacity has been slated to come online in 2016. A scant 366 MW of hydro is scheduled to be added, and in the following two years, these capacity additions are being completely overshadowed by solar, and wind.

This massive amount of solar and wind renewable capacity slated to come online should be the main driver behind the gain in market share expected for the renewable sector in 2016. In 2015, renewable capacity increased to 209,509 MW from 197,990 MW in 2014, resulting in a year-over-year increase of 5.8%. Solar and wind capacity increased to 88,816 MW in 2015 from 77,488 MW in 2014, resulting in a year-over-year increase of 14.6%.