The United States connected a total 487 MW of wind and utility-scale solar capacity to the national grid in August, according to new figures released by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) released its latest Energy Infrastructure Update for August (PDF) this past week, in which the governmental agency revealed that of all new electricity generation in-service for the month of August, wind had installed 2 projects totalling 249 MW, while utility-scale solar had installed 10 projects totalling 238 MW.
In fact, wind and solar were the only new generation capacity added in August, and, alongside natural gas, one of the three major drivers of new electricity generation capacity for the whole of 2015 to date. For the period January to August 2015, natural gas has seen 29 new projects totalling 2,524 MW of installed capacity, wind with 22 projects totalling 2,368 MW, and solar with 123 projects totalling 1,034 MW.
Worth noting, however, is that only wind installed more capacity over the first eight months of the year in 2015 than it did in 2014, with both natural gas and utility-scale solar falling well behind their 2014 installation figures.