Almost All New US Electricity Comes from Solar

It's just timing. In August the total was 1,879 MW and 578MW was solar. In September 58MW, 7MW of which was solar. The major of new capacity is NG.

 

Two people above refer to the same source. I'd say first one was wrong, second was "not right". Link

http://www.ferc.gov/legal/staff-reports/2013/oct-energy-infrastructure.pdf

on page 4, new installations Jan-Oct 2013 ranked

Nat Gas (6245 a tie) = Wind (6245 a tie), Coal (2359), Solar (1257), followed by 'the little guys'

I did not do very much work to know this. Problem is my esteemed predecessors did less It would probably make more sense to look at the most recent 24 or 36 months, if somebody really wanted to know the market trends.

 

That is the 2012 totals. For 2013, NG is 6.6gw and wind is about 1gw. This was noted in the original OP's link.

 

Very good. So we can sum the 2012 and 2013 totals and obtain a longer total with a few missing months

Natural Gas (12870), Wind (7272), Coal (3902), Solar (3785)

The tie I reported is absent from the longer data.

Somebody might expand this to worldwide trends in new E-gen capacity. Seems like a good thing to know.

 

I live in the Northwest, and new wind farms seem to be going in on a daily basis. We don't have much solar, but I wouldn't expect it up here (commercially).

 

Sure. The renewables (incl hydro) work well according to local conditions. We might once have thought that thermoelectrics ('burn' something incl nuclear) are independent of local conditions, but all of those in current technological versions are really thirsty.

How loud are your windfarms, drysider? I have stood within a few hundred meters in Mojave desert and did not hear much.

 

Keep in mind also that existing power plants tend to have spare nat gas turbines that only used to be used part-time to generate power during peak loads. Now that nat gas is cheaper, they have been running these. In other words there already was some spare nat gas capacity, such that the growth in use of nat gas to some extent comes without need for new plants. Which also means the shift to natural gas from coal is flexible, can swing back the other way.

 

For the US, we are retiring coal capacity. I am not sure how much will be retired but 10.9 GW were planned to be retired or mothballed last year and this.
27 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity to retire over next five years - Today in Energy - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

Compared to 2011 coal utilization is down and natural gas utilization is up.
When we look at kwh natural gas has increased a great deal more than anything else.

For the future though, coal lobby is fighting natural gas. The only way natural gas expands is through reduction of coal, and coal is still favored by many regulations. If new regulations from the epa reduce coal natural gas will be the big winner. Subsidies for wind may end this year, which means subsized and much smaller solar may grow much faster than wind in the near future.

This is a possible future.
Coal Power and Changing Industries | The Energy Collective

 

Its about 1.6GW so far, with a large number of new projects starting. Wind had a large number of projects accelerated into 2012, because of uncertainty about tax breaks.
2013 Wind Energy Development Picks Up | EarthTechling

Low natural gas prices and needed grid improvements are going to slow new wind installation. 2012 is likely to be a record for awhile unless new regulations are put in place or the price of natural gas rises. This has set conditions for solar to grow faster than wind for the next few years.

 

The switch from Coal as a majority power source to Natural Gas will not be reversible per se. Many of the new environmental regulations making coal infeasible are shuttering 50+ year old plants that up until very recently served the majority of US load. These will not reopen at any price delta between gas and coal. It is unlikely in today's regulatory environment that another coal plant will be built.

As Natural Gas prices swing upwards again, count on electricity prices to skyrocket. The relatively small amount of available Solar and Wind capacity won't make a dent in this.

 

How are you defining 'available solar capacity'? Is that production capacity of PV panel plants? I was looking at the trends, and if you look only at China, they have been doubling their production of PV panels every year since 2001. At that rate, they will produce enough panels to supply all the power the world uses by 2021. By the next year, they will be producing more PER YEAR, than the entire world used in the previous year.

 

Absolutely the north east has done a dramatic shift to less coal and petroleum, and more natural gas.
Northeast grows increasingly reliant on natural gas for power generation - Today in Energy - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

This gives the region an incentive to add wind, as there are good wind resources that are not utilized, wind is less expensive than solar, and wind reduces the risk of natural gas price increases.

In other regions with better solar prices ($/kwh)may be different.

A big problem in the north east is the grid is outdated for the population, and it needs grid improvements to get proportion of wind up to levels in some of the western part of the country.

The big solar growth is in california and the southwest.

 

Which is way it is so tempting to even electrical power companies to go to local solar. Mine did just that, subsidizing solar power in a particular location, in order to avoid adding a new line, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Most off-shore wind is throttled by where currently existing power plant level infrastructure already exists. We have a decommissioned nuke plant that they are desperately trying to find a use for.

 

What percent of solar do you expect in the north east in the next 7 years? The numbers I have seen are less than 1%. Sure this may help an individual but does not help on the grid level.

 

Which is way it is so tempting to even electrical power companies to go to local solar. Mine did just that, subsidizing solar power in a particular location, in order to avoid adding a new line, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Most off-shore wind is throttled by where currently existing power plant level infrastructure already exists. We have a decommissioned nuke plant that they are desperately trying to find a use for.

 

Current percentage of existing generation is, of course, completely irrelevant. I am not confident about making a prediction, but solar PV is at parity with electric rates, in seven years, it will no-doubt be well below that, and everyone with intelligence and a place to put them, will have done so. We currently have a number of companies who will install panels, charge the owner electricity prices below market, and give the panels to them after 7ish years. No up-front costs.

This will help at the grid level immensely. Our peak usage is in summer afternoons, and we are paying up to 46 cents / kWh (wholesale) for power at those times. Local solar will ease the peak loads, dropping the average price of kWh for everyone on the grid.

 

...was that the Yankee plant? old style design like Fukishima?

..I realize coal plants are declining, but also (I posted a few weeks ago) data shows that current plants are running approx. 55% capacity (2012) and about 60% so far in 2013, vs. about 80% would be considered full out.

Many (blue) states have committed to 20% RFS renewable power by 2020. To be honest, I do not really see how it is going to happen for many of those states. There is quite a bit of flexibility...I think in what they consider to be renewable. I am fan of properly done trash-to-energy...in the Northeast much of NY and other trash gets shipped all over the place including the trash train to Virginia. Probably 5% renewable right there. You go to buy an HO train set these days they give you interstate trash hauling trains....sheesh.

 

Yes, Maine Yankee. I don't know the design style. All that's left at this point is the wiring infrastructure, the waste, and ongoing costs.

 

It's encouraging to see the increasing numbers for renewables. Geothermal, in particular, seems a better long-term investment than coal, oil, or nuclear.