25% of electricity in the United States will be renewable in 3 years

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission states in its latest report how important renewables will be in the electricity generation capacity in the United States

The electricity generation capacity in the United States will be linked to the production and investment in renewable energy. This is stated in the report “Energy Infrastructure Update“, issued by the US regulatory mechanism in this field, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which states that 25% of the country’s electrical production capacity will be renewable in just 3 years.

This report maintains that the additions of wind energy, counting those retired of equipment whose useful life will come to an end in this three-year period, will represent a net increase of 26,167 MW; those of solar energy will represent a growth of 22,593 MW; and natural gas will reach 21,822 MW.

In the coming years, the incorporation of wind and solar energy together will be much greater than that of gas, making the combination of all renewables (those already mentioned along with biomass, geothermal and hydroelectric; which will experience growth of 1,903 MW, 178 MW and 92 MW, respectively) will represent almost 51 GW of new electricity capacity in the United States. Faced with this data, energies with the greatest impact on the climate such as natural gas, coal, hydrocarbons and nuclear energy will decrease their presence in the energy mix by 19,082 MW, 3,060 MW and 1,369 MW respectively. Thus, by the spring of 2023, green energy will account for a quarter of the nation’s total electrical capacity.

And the fact is that renewables have gained ground in recent years In the land of the stars and stripes. Thus, during the first two months of this tumultuous 2020, 38 new solar power plants, totaling almost 1 GW of electrical power capacity, have been added to the sockets of citizens in the United States. Added to this, as the report itself states, are four wind power farms with a capacity of 303 MW and three small hydroelectric power units of 13 MW. All of these additions of green energy sources account for 85.7% of the new electricity generation facilities carried out to that date in the country.

On the other hand, the remaining 14.3% of installed energy capacity was Natural Gas, with no coal, oil, nuclear energy, biomass or geothermal energy capacity. A revolution in electricity in the United States.

These data must be viewed in the context of the current presence of this type of energy in the country’s overall capacity. Thus, we find that today, 22.6% of the installed electrical energy capacity in the United States is renewable. Still far from the main source of energy, natural gas with 44.6% of the total; the second by unitary character, coal with 20.6% representation; and surpassing nuclear, which participates with 8.84% of the total. Wind and solar power generation capacity accounts for 12.58% of the total.

Solar energy, more a reality than a trend

Exactly 3 years ago we published an article called “What is the ceiling for solar energy in the US?” after learning that the North American country installed 14.6 GW of solar energy in 2016. At that time, the installation of this type of technology exceeded its record figures from the previous year by 95%, and was consolidated as the main investment in electricity generation capacity in the country, increasing from 4% in 2010 to 39% in 2016. Thus, the United States added 10.8 GW of solar energy in 2017 and 10.6 GW in 2018.