The EIA is infamous for its absurdly conservative projections for the growth of renewable energy. This year, in complete contradiction to every thing else going on in the Trump Maladministration, the EIA has begun to get with the program, and is now telling us when renewables will overtake natural gas in the US grid. They are still wrong, but far less wrong than before.
Renewables Set to Overtake Natural Gas in US Power Mix, EIA Says—GreenTechMedia
Last year in its Annual Energy Outlook, the EIA put natural gas at 39 percent of the power mix in 2050 under its base-case scenario, far outpacing renewables at 31 percent.
Fast forward to the 2020 Annual Energy Outlook, released Wednesday, and that prediction has been turned on its head: Renewables are now forecast to account for 38 percent of electricity in 2050 (up from 19 percent today), while natural gas will see its share drop to 36 percent (from 37 percent today).
It's all nonsense, of course. We will be at more than 100% renewable electricity in 2050, with the surplus being absorbed in a variety of industrial processes such as generating hydrogen, or perhaps turning waste into graphene.