Renewables
Dominate New US Electrical Generating Capacity
From: Clean Techies Staff, Clean
Techies, More from this Affiliate
Specifically, three wind farms came on line last month, accounting
for 333-MW of new generation in service. These included Stella Wind Farm’s
182-MW Panhandle Wind Farm Phase II expansion in Texas and the 150-MW Origin
Wind Energy project in Oklahoma.
New wind generating capacity this year thus
far has more than doubled that for the same period in 2013 (2,525-MW vs.
1,112-MW).
In addition, 14 new “units” of solar came on line for a total of 294-MW
of capacity, led by MidAmerican Renewables LLC’s 250-MW Topaz Solar Farms
expansion in California.
So, for the ninth time in the past eleven months, renewable energy
sources (i.e., biomass, geothermal, hydropower, solar, wind) accounted for the
majority of new U.S. electrical generation brought into service. Natural gas
took the lead in the other two months (April and August).
Of the 10,926-MW of new generating capacity from all sources
installed since January 1, 2014, 39 units of wind accounted for 2,525-MW
(23.11%), followed by 235 units of solar – 2,203-MW (20.16%), 49 units of
biomass – 282-MW (2.58%), 7 units of hydropower – 141-MW (1.29%), and 5 units
of geothermal – 32-MW (0.29%). In total, renewables have provided 47.43% of new
U.S. electrical generating capacity thus far in 2014.
The balance came from 46 units of natural gas – 5,513-MW (50.46%),
1 unit of coal – 106-MW(0.97%), 1 unit of nuclear – 71-MW (0.65%), 15 units of
oil – 47-MW (0.43%), and 6 units of “other” – 7-MW (0.06%). Thus, new capacity
from renewable energy sources in 2014 is 49 times that from coal, 73 times that
from nuclear, and 110 times that from oil.
Renewable energy sources now account for 16.44% of total installed
operating generating capacity in the U.S.: water – 8.43%, wind – 5.42%, biomass
– 1.38%, solar – 0.88%, and geothermal steam – 0.33%. Renewable energy capacity
is now greater than that of nuclear (9.22%) and oil (3.97%) combined.
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