The EIA almost always projects boring linear growth for everything. Their data is a terrific resource for what is currently happening, what has happened recently, and what is already scheduled on the pipeline. I would not put much stock in their projections beyond their Short Term Energy Outlook. I would certainly not describe them as the most optimistic industry projections.

They project that the solar growth rate will drop after 2023 when the ITC would have expired, but it was extended in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. From there, they expect the growth curve of solar to slowly decay. It's basically all a linear projection and scarcely any more insightful than that.

They expect that electricity generation from coal will be flat (except for already-announced early coal plant retirements). They expect nuclear to be flat. They expect generation from natural gas to increase (unless renewables are cheap, in which case they expect it to be flat). They fail to anticipate the replacement of coal by natural gas or renewables and they fail to anticipate the replacement of natural gas by renewables.

Finally, as a point of comparison, take a look at their projections for EVs and hybrids. The EIA projects that EVs and hybrids will still only make up about 20% of the market for new cars in the US in 2050. (See page 9 of [1]).

[1] https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/AEO2022_ChartLibrary_Tr...