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A quarter of the nation’s electricity would still come from coal in 2030, so it’s hard to view the Obama administration’s proposed Clean Power Plan as the wholesale remaking of the U.S. power sector that the increasingly dire science on global warming would seemingly compel. Nevertheless, a new U.S. Energy Information Administration analysis shows the CPP would deliver more renewable energy and perhaps heftier reductions in greenhouse gas emissions than originally forecast, and do so without blowing up electricity bills.

The EIA’s modeling showed non-hydro renewables would rise from about 7 percent of U.S. electrical generation today to 18.7 percent by 2030 under the CPP. Without the CPP, renewable energy gains would be far more modest, climbing to just 9.8 percent in 2030.

Proportion of generation for respective fuels/technologies in 2013; in 2030 under the EIA’s AEO2015 Reference case; and in 2030 under the Clean Power Plan using the Reference case as the underlying baseline. Based on EIA data.

The set of regulations was unveiled a year ago and is nearing final rulemaking, a major court challenge and disdain from Congressional Republicans notwithstanding.

Implementation of the plan would lead to between 29 and 36 percent less carbon dioxide emissions in 2030 compared to 2005, the EIA said. Electricity rates would rise, and bills would creep up in the short term, but further out on the time horizon higher prices would be offset by reduced consumption. “By 2040, total electricity expenditures in the CPP case are slightly below those in the AE02015 Reference case, as decreases in demand more than offset the price increases,” the EIA said.

Change in electric power sector CO2 emissions in Clean Power Plan (CPP) cases relative to baseline. CPP: Clean Power Plan; CPPEXT: Targets extended beyond 2030; CPPNUC: CPP with new nuclear; CPPHEG: CPP with high economic growth; CPPHOGR: CPP with high oil and gas supplies. Chart from EIA’s ‘Analysis of the Impacts of the Clean Power Plan.’

Coal would hardly disappear, but it would be a loser under the CPP, the EIA said, with its proportion of generation falling from 39 percent in 2013 to 25 percent by 2030. The contribution from natural gas would rise from 27.5 to 31.2 percent of generation.

This sounded pretty good to climate hawks.

“The increase in natural gas use in early years followed by a big shift to less polluting renewable energy enables the country to continue the transition away from coal,” said Steve Clemmer, director of energy research and analysis for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

That increasing role of renewables would come particularly beyond 2030, the EIA said, and would be especially marked under a scenario in which emissions reduction targets were extended “in order to reduce CO2 emissions from the power sector by 45 percent below 2005 levels in 2040,” the EIA said.

Change in generation and energy efficiency savings under the Clean Power Plan Policy Extension case relative to AEO2015 Reference case. Chart from EIA’s ‘Analysis of the Impacts of the Clean Power Plan.’

“Switching from coal-fired generation to natural gas-fired generation is the predominant compliance strategy as implementation begins, with renewables playing a growing role in the mid-2020s and beyond,” the EIA said. “Demand-side energy efficiency plays a moderate role in compliance, relative to the early role of natural gas and the eventual role of renewables.”

UCS and other green groups have gently criticized the Clean Power Plan for not being more aggressive in bringing on renewable energy; as originally written, the EPA had said it would increase the proportion of generation from non-hydro renewables to around 12 percent by 2030. UCS, in its own analysis, had said 23 percent was doable, so the EIA figure lands closer to that mark.

Politically, this might be the best that can be done, but the shift remains fairly modest when checked against government, industry and advocate goals for renewable energy.

For instance, while the EIA sees the Clean Power Plan boosting wind to 12.3 percent of U.S. electricity by 2030, the DOE has promoted a “vision” in which wind would hit 20 percent by then. Just last week the DOE put out a new report that detailed how improved technology, including taller towers and larger rotors, would help make 20-by-2030 achievable.

And in November last year, a report from the group Environment America made the case that the U.S. could and should set a goal of “obtaining at least 10 percent of its electricity from solar power by 2030.” The group said to accomplish that, solar capacity would need to grow at an annual rate of 22 percent between 2013 and 2030 – slower than what has been seen in recent years.

The EIA said that with the Clean Power Plan in place, solar would grow six-fold, but that would still only take it from about 0.5 percent of generation in 2013 to 3.2 percent in 2030. (It should be noted that the EIA is counting only utility-scale generation, and distributed generation would likely add a couple of percentage points to that estimate.)

One reason the CPP isn’t even more optimistic in its projection for renewables: Other than the CPP kicking in, it assumes laws and regulations in effect as of October 2014, which means it assumes no Production Tax Credit for wind power and an Investment Tax Credit for solar reduced from 30 percent to 10 percent.