Renewable Energy 100% of new U.S. Generation in July

Via ABG:

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RENEWABLE ENERGY PROVIDES 100% OF ALL NEW U.S. ELECTRICAL GENERATING CAPACITY IN JULY

Washington DC – According to the latest "Energy Infrastructure Update" report from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's Office of Energy Projects, all new U.S. electrical generating capacity put into service in July came from renewable energy sources: 379 megawatts (MW) of wind, 21 MW of solar, and 5 MW of hydropower.

For the first seven months of 2014, renewables have accounted for more than half (53.8%) of the 4,758 MW of new U.S. electrical capacity that has come on line with solar (25.8%) and wind (25.1%) each accounting for more than a quarter of the total. In addition, biomass provided 1.8%, geothermal 0.7%, and hydropower 0.4%.

As for the balance, natural gas accounted for 45.9% while a small fraction (0.3%) came from oil and "other" combined. There has been no new electrical generating capacity from either coal or nuclear thus far in 2014.

Renewable energy sources now account for 16.3% of total installed operating generating capacity in the U.S.: water - 8.57%, wind - 5.26%, biomass - 1.37%, solar - 0.75%, and geothermal steam - 0.33%. *

This is not the first time in recent years that all new electrical generating capacity for a given month has come from renewable energy sources," noted Ken Bossong, Executive Director of the SUN DAY Campaign. "And it is likely to become an ever more frequent occurrence in the months and years ahead."

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The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission released its most recent 5-page "Energy Infrastructure Update," with data through July 31, 2014, on August 19, 2014. See the tables titled "New Generation In-Service (New Build and Expansion)" and "Total Installed Operating Generating Capacity" at http://www.ferc.gov/legal/staff-reports/2014/jul-infrastructure.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; .

* Note that generating capacity is not the same as actual generation. Generation per MW of capacity for renewables is often lower than that for fossil fuels and nuclear power. Actual net electrical generation from renewable energy sources in the United States now totals about 14% of total U.S. electrical production according to the most recent data (i.e., as of May 2014) provided by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (see: http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false.

I wonder what the total renewable generating capacity would be if residential solar is added in. I think it is likely the numbers in the post above is for new utility generation. Does anyone keep track of total rooftop solar generation in the US? I'd like to know what it is.

ranss12 said:

I wonder what the total renewable generating capacity would be if residential solar is added in. I think it is likely the numbers in the post above is for new utility generation. Does anyone keep track of total rooftop solar generation in the US? I'd like to know what it is.

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You're correct, the EIA numbers don't include residential rooftop solar. I don't know where to find that, as there are so many companies installing it now I imagine it would be a royal pain to keep track of it all.

GRA said:

ranss12 said:

I wonder what the total renewable generating capacity would be if residential solar is added in. I think it is likely the numbers in the post above is for new utility generation. Does anyone keep track of total rooftop solar generation in the US? I'd like to know what it is.

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You're correct, the EIA numbers don't include residential rooftop solar. I don't know where to find that, as there are so many companies installing it now I imagine it would be a royal pain to keep track of it all.

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We'll just have to keep going and look for the EIA to report that "no coal was used to generate electricity in the USA in August."

+1 there is hope for us yet.

Does anyone know how they are reporting the wind and solar? They cite two wind farms and their capacities and the total shown in the table is the sum of the two capacities. But the nameplate capacity of a wind turbine is essentially meaningless when you want to know how much energy will be produced by it in a year.

I mean if I build a 10MW natural gas power plant and run it all year, I'm gonna get 24x365x10MW, less some allowance for maintenance and downtime as being the plant's ability to produce. But if I install 10MW of wind nameplate capacity, it's going to depend upon how windy the area of the installation is, and will almost never produce 10MW at any given point-in-time. And in fact when it does, aren't you also on the verge of having it lock-out due to high winds, thus dropping production to zero?

kikngas said:

+1 there is hope for us yet.

Does anyone know how they are reporting the wind and solar? They cite two wind farms and their capacities and the total shown in the table is the sum of the two capacities. But the nameplate capacity of a wind turbine is essentially meaningless when you want to know how much energy will be produced by it in a year.

I mean if I build a 10MW natural gas power plant and run it all year, I'm gonna get 24x365x10MW, less some allowance for maintenance and downtime as being the plant's ability to produce. But if I install 10MW of wind nameplate capacity, it's going to depend upon how windy the area of the installation is, and will almost never produce 10MW at any given point-in-time. And in fact when it does, aren't you also on the verge of having it lock-out due to high winds, thus dropping production to zero?

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I don't know offhand where to find yearly outputs and capacity factors for individual plants, although I'm sure the data is around. I'd try the EIA or DoE websites first. FWIW, last I saw fairly recent wind turbine fields in good sites were operating at capacity factors of 30-35%, although that will undoubtedly drop somewhat as they age and downtimes for maintenance and repair increase. This cleantechnica article from 2012, http://cleantechnica.com/2012/07/27/wind-turbine-net-capacity-factor-50-the-new-normal/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

claims that they are 'often' 50% for new onshore turbines, without providing any data to support that.

GRA said:

claims that they are 'often' 50% for new onshore turbines, without providing any data to support that.

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I'd like to see hard numbers, but would also like to see details of how the generation is managed and curtailed.

It appears that most of the early wind farms are being planted on land with substantial wind resources - there are places where the wind is almost 'always' blowing. If there's enough transmission capacity and the generation isn't curtailed, I'd expect high capacity numbers. We may not get to see renewable generation working up to its potential until we get wind-H2 or other storage on-line so curtailment stops.

Here we go, EIA U.S. capacity factor numbers for non-fossil fuels:

http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm?t=epmt_6_07_b" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Folks, ALL the new generation capacity in July here in the US came from renewable energy.

Whatever the actual production is - 100% of the added capacity was from renewable energy systems.

GRA said:

Here we go, EIA U.S. capacity factor numbers for non-fossil fuels:

http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm?t=epmt_6_07_b" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Thanks. I think it's very important to know how these are managed. If a specific wind farm has a ~30% factor, is it because there's not enough wind, not enough transmission, or because other generation has priority and the wind is routinely curtailed? We need to know more than just the input and output - we need to know what's happening in the 'black box' in the middle, I think...

Case in point is West Texas wind - the state's more than 8 years behind delivering the promised transmission - and that means that way too much perfectly good wind capacity is used only for removing soil from cotton fields. The poor numbers aren't a result of the turbines or the wind.

NeilBlanchard said:

Folks, ALL the new generation capacity in July here in the US came from renewable energy.

Whatever the actual production is - 100% of the added capacity was from renewable energy systems.

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Uh, yeah, I know. I did _start_ the thread. The topic is just drifting a bit, but that's the nature of conversations.

AndyH said:

GRA said:

Here we go, EIA U.S. capacity factor numbers for non-fossil fuels:

http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm?t=epmt_6_07_b" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Click to expand...

Thanks. I think it's very important to know how these are managed. If a specific wind farm has a ~30% factor, is it because there's not enough wind, not enough transmission, or because other generation has priority and the wind is routinely curtailed? We need to know more than just the input and output - we need to know what's happening in the 'black box' in the middle, I think...

Case in point is West Texas wind - the state's more than 8 years behind delivering the promised transmission - and that means that way too much perfectly good wind capacity is used only for removing soil from cotton fields. The poor numbers aren't a result of the turbines or the wind.

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Sure, the infrastructure to get the power where you need it is important, and often not mentioned by proponents when talking about costs. China had a real problem with this at least up to 2012, as they had lots of turbines (76GW), but 15GW worth wasn't connected to the grid. In 2013 they stopped being so dumb, and built a lot of the transmission infrastructure they needed. And the grid wasn't very capable of dealing with intermittency either, so they had to curtail a lot of what they produced. Here's a BBC article from January which talks about some of the issues:

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-25623400" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;