Renewable resources continue their slow creep into the energy market. There’s been some recent reports and advancements that have illustrated just how far — or not very far at all — renewables have seeped into the market.

As we reported in this news article, the amount of new wind energy projects for 2007 is growing beyond expectations. The previous estimate of 3,000 MW would have been the highest amount of new wind projects in a year, but it’s estimated in this report to reach 4,000 MW, based on the projects underway to be completed still in this year.

In what’s probably the next largest renewables category, the solar market has been making slow but steady progress as well. Helping photovoltaic technology along is the recently announced $21 million in grants to solar projects from the U.S. Department of Energy. The projects, mostly at universities, will receive an average of $900,000 over three years to research new photovoltaic technologies.

According to this annual report from the Energy Information Administration, electricity generation from renewable sources (non-hydroelectric) rose 10.4 percent between 2005 and 2006. But even with that increase, renewables only accounted for 2.4 percent of net power generation in the U.S. Of that renewably-generated power, wind energy contributed 95 percent of the growth over the year before. Coal, natural gas and nuclear energy are still the top sources of electricity, and have averaged in total between 84.6 and 88.6 percent of power generated per year since 1995.