If you love solar, you’re going to love electricity capacity trends in the US. In the first quarter of 2014, over 51% of new electricity generation capacity came from solar (51% excludes small and medium rooftop solar projects), and renewable energy on the whole contributed 92.1%.
This follows a year (2013) when solar was the #2 source of new electricity capacity, adding 21% of all new electricity generation capacity (again, not including rooftop solar projects).
This is all better visualized in charts and tables, so below are several of those. Above is a chart of new electricity generation capacity in the 1st quarter of 2014, and here is a table on that split:
Here is a chart on the 2013 new electricity generation capacity split, and then a table on that:
And here is a chart and then a table on total electricity generation capacity in the US at the end of March 2014:
Thanks to the SUN DAY Campaign for sending me this FERC update. As a representative from the campaign aptly noted to me, “Renewable energy sources, including hydropower, now account for 16.3% of total installed U.S. operating generating capacity: water – 8.58%, wind – 5.27%, biomass – 1.37%, solar – 0.75%, and geothermal steam – 0.33%. This is more than nuclear (9.25%) and oil (4.04%) combined.” Nice.
We still have a long way to go, but at least we are now making very strong progress.
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