• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
BP Predicts Faster Oil and Gas Decline as Clean Energy Spending Hits $1.1T in 2022 January 31, 2023
Canada Needs Oil and Gas Emissions Cap to Hit 2030 Goal: NZAB January 31, 2023
Ecuador’s Amazon Drilling Plan Shows Need for Fossil Non-Proliferation Treaty January 31, 2023
Rainforest Carbon Credits from World’s Biggest Provider are ‘Largely Worthless’, Investigation Finds January 31, 2023
Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing January 23, 2023
Next
Prev

Surging Wind, Solar Deliver 93% of New U.S. Grid Capacity

June 11, 2021
Reading time: 2 minutes

pxfuel

pxfuel

 

Wind and solar accounted for nearly all of the new electrical generating capacity installed in the United States between January and April this year.

The two clean energy technologies accounted for 93.84% of new capacity additions over the four-month span, PVBuzz Media reports, citing an analysis of U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) data carried out by the SUN Day Campaign.

  • Be among the first to read The Energy Mix Weekender
  • A brand new weekly digest containing exclusive and essential climate stories from around the world.
  • The Weekender:The climate news you need.
New!
Subscribe

The latest edition of FERC’s Energy Infrastructure Update shows 18 new wind units bringing 3,802 megawatts of electricity onto the U.S. grid, followed by 131 new utility-scale solar installations adding 2,702 MW. Fossil gas accounted for 402 MW, followed by hydropower at 14 MW, oil at 6 MW, and biomass at 5 MW.

In April, all but one megawatt of new capacity came from wind (659 MW) and solar (147 MW).

“Utility-scale renewable energy facilities collectively now account for 24.77% of the nation’s total available installed generating capacity and continue to expand their lead over coal (19.28%), nuclear power (8.21%), and oil (3.14%),” PV Buzz writes, with solar supplying 14.96% and wind 10.24%.

While FERC reports a “high probability” that solar and wind will add about 63,000 MW by April 2024, “coal and oil are projected to plummet— by 25,171 MW and 3,354 MW respectively,” while nuclear is set to lose 3,256 MW, the news story states. While new gas plants will still be built, their “currently dominant share of total generating is forecast to diminish as the gap between the growth in new renewable capacity and new gas capacity continues to accelerate.”

PVBuzz helpfully explains the difference between a power station’s capacity and its actual output, which depends both on the number of megawatts installed and the percent of the time it can supply electricity. Due to the differences between the technologies, renewables accounted for 24.8% of installed capacity but 21.6% of total generation over the first three months of this year, while coal made up 19.3% of capacity but delivered 23.2% of the power.

[The renewables, on the other hand, accounted for zero cases of black lung disease, mountaintop removal, or safety violations leading to deadly mine collapses, and did not help fry the planet when used as directed.—Ed.]

Even with numbers that show renewables surging while fossil fuels fade, “FERC’s forecasts for strong growth by solar and wind over the next few years may actually prove to be quite conservative,” said SUN DAY Executive Director Ken Bossong. “Strong support from the Biden administration coupled with further declines in wind and solar costs, stronger state Renewable Portfolio Standards, expanding corporate renewable energy purchases, and public pressure to address worsening climate change are combining to accelerate an already fast-moving train.”



in Clean Electricity Grid, Climate & Society, Coal, Demand & Distribution, Ending Emissions, Fossil Fuels, Jurisdictions, Oil & Gas, Renewable Energy, Solar, United States, Wind

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Mike Mozart/Flickr
Ending Emissions

BP Predicts Faster Oil and Gas Decline as Clean Energy Spending Hits $1.1T in 2022

January 31, 2023
328
Gina Dittmer/PublicDomainPictures
Canada

Canada Needs Oil and Gas Emissions Cap to Hit 2030 Goal: NZAB

January 31, 2023
196
CONFENIAE
Ending Emissions

Ecuador’s Amazon Drilling Plan Shows Need for Fossil Non-Proliferation Treaty

January 31, 2023
61

Comments 1

  1. Frank Sterle Jr. says:
    2 years ago

    The president’s global-warming-alleviation plan should also include mass solar energy harvestation. For one thing, it may no longer be prudent to have every structure’s entire electricity supply relying on external power lines that are susceptible to being crippled by unforeseen events, including storms of unprecedented magnitude, especially considering our very vulnerable overreliance on electricity. (There also are coronal mass ejections to consider, albeit their damaging effects are rare, in which power grids are vulnerable to potentially extensive damage and long-lasting power outages.) Perhaps every residential/business structure could harvest at least some energy through solar cell panels, even if only as an emergency/backup source of power via independent storage system; albeit the idea likely would be opposed by various corporate interests.

    If solar-panel universality would come at the profit-margin expense of the traditional energy production companies, one can expect obstacles, including the political and regulatory sort. If it notably conflicts with corporate big-profit interests, even very progressive motions are greatly resisted, often enough successfully. Of course there will be those, usually Internet trolls, who will mock the idea for ‘not being realistic’. One based his rebuttal solely on the erroneous notion that if it were possible to have such independent solar-power generation and storage, it would have been done by now and made a few people very wealthy. Unfortunately, when such illogic is widely believed, it’s much easier for some entity to maintain an outdatedly problematic but still very profitable status-quo energy system.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

Mike Mozart/Flickr

BP Predicts Faster Oil and Gas Decline as Clean Energy Spending Hits $1.1T in 2022

January 31, 2023
328
jasonwoodhead23/flickr

Canada, U.K., U.S. Must Cut Oil and Gas 76% by 2030 to Keep 1.5° Alive, New Analysis Finds

March 23, 2022
506
Nuclear Jordan/Facebook

TC Energy Wants to Supply ‘Small-Scale’ Nuclear Reactors to Alberta Tar Sands/Oil Sands

May 4, 2022
399
openthegovernment.org

BREAKING: U.S. Senate Passes Historic $369B Climate Package

August 8, 2022
540
Joshua Doubek/Wikipedia

No New Jobs Came from Alberta’s $4B ‘Job Creation’ Tax Cut for Big Oil

October 6, 2022
502
Sam Balto/YouTube

Elementary School’s Bike Bus Brings ‘Sheer Joy’ to Portland Neighbourhood

October 16, 2022
260

Recent Posts

Gina Dittmer/PublicDomainPictures

Canada Needs Oil and Gas Emissions Cap to Hit 2030 Goal: NZAB

January 31, 2023
196
CONFENIAE

Ecuador’s Amazon Drilling Plan Shows Need for Fossil Non-Proliferation Treaty

January 31, 2023
61
Ken Teegardin www.SeniorLiving.Org/flickr

Virtual Power Plants Hit an ‘Inflection Point’

January 31, 2023
125
/snappy goat

Rainforest Carbon Credits from World’s Biggest Provider are ‘Largely Worthless’, Investigation Finds

January 31, 2023
94
Victorgrigas/wikimedia commons

World Bank Climate Reforms Too ‘Timid and Slow,’ Critics Warn

January 31, 2023
42
Doc Searls/Twitter

Guilbeault Could Intervene on Ontario Greenbelt Development

January 31, 2023
132
Next Post
Ed Markey

‘No Climate, No Deal,’ Democrat Vows, as Senate Group Scales Back Biden Infrastructure Plan

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}