A new analysis released today by Ceres shows that many of the nation’s largest electric utilities and their local subsidiaries are moving toward lower carbon fuel sources and that ambitious state policies and strong corporate demand for renewable energy are key drivers of this trend.

The 2016 Benchmarking Utility Clean Energy analysis ranks the 30 largest electric utility holding companies and their 119 subsidiary companies, which collectively account for about 60 percent of U.S. retail electricity sales. The results show overall advances on renewable energy and energy efficiency in 2014, the latest year for which data is available, with some utilities producing 25 to 35 percent of their electricity from wind, solar and other renewables.

Wide disparities in the utilities’ clean energy performance remain, however, underscoring the need for swift implementation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan. The plan reduces carbon emissions from electric power plants by 32 percent by 2030.

“Renewable energy and energy efficiency, key building blocks of the Clean Power Plan, are increasingly cost-effective options for electric utilities looking to lower their carbon emissions,” said Dan Bakal, director of electric power programs at Ceres, a nonprofit sustainability advocacy organization. “Our analysis shows that the U.S. electric sector is in the midst of an unprecedented shift toward clean energy resources and that state policies are critical for continued progress in achieving national and international climate goals.”

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Read the press release.