According to a review by the SUN DAY Campaign of data recently released by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), renewable energy sources (biomass, geothermal, hydropower, solar and wind) dominated new U.S. electrical generating capacity additions during the first two-thirds of 2021.
FERC’s latest monthly “Energy Infrastructure Update” report (with data through August 31, 2021) reveals that renewable energy sources accounted for 86.46% — or 13,868 MW — of the 16,039 MW of new capacity added during the first eight months of the year. Wind led the capacity additions with 7,224 MW, followed closely by solar (6,585 MW). There were also small additions by hydropower (25 MW), geothermal (25 MW), and biomass (9 MW).
Most of the balance (2,155 MW) was provided by natural gas. There has been no new capacity added this year by coal and only 16 MW of new oil capacity have come online.
Renewables now provide more than a quarter (25.22%) of total U.S. available installed generating capacity. By comparison, a year ago, their share was only 23.22%. Five years ago, it was 18.39% and a decade earlier it was 14.09%.
Wind and solar alone accounted for 98.52% of the 1,554 MW of new capacity additions in July and August with natural gas providing just 23 MW. Wind is now more than a tenth (10.48%) of the nation’s generating capacity while utility-scale solar has surpassed five percent (5.02%) … and that does not include distributed solar.
Moreover, FERC data suggest that renewables’ share of generating capacity is on track to increase significantly over the next three years (by August 2024). “High probability” generation capacity additions for wind, minus anticipated retirements, reflect a projected net increase of 21,708 MW while solar is foreseen growing by 44,052 MW. By comparison, net growth for natural gas will be only 13,186 MW. Thus, wind and solar combined are forecast to provide roughly five times more new net generating capacity than natural gas over the next three years.
Including hydropower, biomass, and geothermal, net new renewable energy capacity additions over the next three years are projected to total 66,581 MW. This is nearly identical to the actual net additions of renewable energy capacity — 65,820 MW — which FERC has reported for the last three years (since August 2018).
If FERC’s latest projections materialize, by August 2024, renewable energy generating capacity should account for almost 30% (29.44%) of the nation’s total available installed generating capacity.
Moreover, installed utility-scale solar capacity alone is on track to exceed that of nuclear power (106,060 MW vs. 104,620 MW) within that same time frame. In fact, new utility-scale solar capacity forecast to be added over the next three years (44,052 MW) will be more than 20 times greater than the capacity of the two new Vogtle nuclear reactors in Georgia (2,200 MW) that have been under construction since 2013.
“FERC’s data confirm that wind and solar are dominating new capacity additions in 2021 and are likely to continue doing so in the future,” noted Ken Bossong, Executive Director of the SUN DAY Campaign. “Nonetheless, to effectively address climate change, the pace of renewable energy growth needs to increase at an even faster rate.”
News item from the Sun Day Campaign. Headline edited 10/6 to reflect that the nameplate capacity is on track to overtake nuclear capacity in three years, but not necessarily the generation.
I echo the comments that your comparison of name plate generation capacity is ignorant of the vastly different capacity factors = availability!
Please at least compare annual energy generation numbers for nuclear, fossil, wind and solar.
Even that is an insufficient comparison. We all need power on dark & windless nights when wind & solar are useless. So please present how much energy storage capacity is required for solar & wind to match the availability of nuclear power?
Considering that utility scale solar farms take up many times more acres of land to produce the same megawatt capacity as a nuclear power plant, it will be interesting to see who wins the land battle: agriculture farms, housing developments, or utility scale solar farms. My vote goes to agriculture.
The actual percentage of carbon-free power generation in 2020 breaks down as follows;
Wind and Solar 10.7%
Hydroelectric 7.3%
Nuclear 20%
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-in-the-us-generation-capacity-and-sales.php
Dear Kelsey,
The headline “Utility-scale solar GENERATION on track to overtake nuclear power in three years” definitely caught my eye.
Your article discusses generation CAPACITY. Generation Capacity is not the same as Generation, especially with wind and solar renewables since they only produce electricity during portions of the day.
Nuclear is producing actual electricity about 95% of the time. Wind and Solar are producing, generally speaking, only 25-40% o the time.
So, please include the word CAPACITY in your current headline. In the future their capacity will be 3 time that of nuclear and THEN your current headline should be true.
I am very supportive of all non-carbon energy, but there are too many Americans and politicians who think that 1 solar unit = 1 nuclear unit when this is far from reality. Please help readers understand this important difference. Yep, keep adding that solar capacity, but there MUST be a lot more of it to actually be able to help replace what nuclear contributes to our clean energy goals.
Thank you
Thanks for pointing that out, Dana — I’ve updated the headline to reflect that.
It’s great that so much renewable capacity is being added, but before celebrating–remember that “capacity” is a maximum and “capacity factor” also needs to be taken into account. Fossil fuels and nuclear have much higher capacity factors (they run all the time) than do wind and solar, which means we need to install even more of those sources if we are to truly replace fossil fuels’ contribution to the grid. Decentralized solar will surely help the numbers, but there is a lot of work to do! It is dangerous to consider solely the “available capacity.”
“Renewables now provide more than a quarter (25.22%) of total U.S. available installed generating capacity. By comparison, a year ago, their share was only 23.22%. Five years ago, it was 18.39% and a decade earlier it was 14.09%.”
One needs to keep in mind FERC is in the wholesale electricity regulation business and statistics are often skewed towards an existing centralized energy generation system with dispatch over power corridors and intrinsic transformer step up and step down power losses from generation to end user. In a local or even regional micro-grid the step up and step down losses are less on a home micro grid the solar PV is generated and stored right where it is used a good 12% to to 25% energy efficiency gain over the centralized generation/power corridor dispatch system.
It is due for NREL and or the DOE to get involved with a deep overall analysis of the national grid system and see where solar PV and wind generation would be profitable as a utility installation and the proper UHVDC interconnections from North to South and East to West encompassing distribution, energy storage regional and local and where best to put these very large scale regional ESS units. Perhaps enhanced redox flow battery technology and perhaps 10GWh to 100GWh of ready energy storage to use in the day ahead energy market.