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Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

eia.gov

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Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#3

81% of new US electric-generating capacity. Not 81% of total US capacity.

Thanks for the correction, "new" was accidentally dropped while trying to squeezed the original title into the allowed number of characters.

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#5

A neat trend. But still renewables are a small fraction of electrical generation capacity in the US. Dominated by gas, even the renewable slice ( A long, long way to go to complete renewable energy.

https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights... ("US Interconnection Queues Analysis 2023")

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=55960 ("Renewable generation surpassed coal and nuclear in the U.S. electric power sector in 2022")

https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2022/11/02/u-s-to-deploy-550-gw-... ("U.S. to deploy 550 GW of new renewables by 2030")

China deployed more solar last year than total US solar generation capacity, so while work, it can be done.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/chinas-installed-sol... ("The country built in excess of 216 gigawatts (GW) of solar power this year, the data indicated, underscoring the scale and pace of China's solar build out.")

Currently, the U.S. PV manufacturing industry has the capacity to produce PV modules to meet nearly a third of US domestic demand.

https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/solar-manufacturing

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#6

A neat trend. But still renewables are a small fraction of electrical generation capacity in the US. Dominated by gas, even the renewable slice ( A long, long way to go to complete renewable energy.

I think wind dominates hydropower now

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#7

A neat trend. But still renewables are a small fraction of electrical generation capacity in the US. Dominated by gas, even the renewable slice ( A long, long way to go to complete renewable energy.

Say you don't understand exponential growth without saying you don't understand exponential growth.

Re: Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024

#9
That's nice, but there is a long way to go, also it would probably be better to see batteries as a part of the 'storage' bracket, after all the batteries don't generate electricity, they store it. It's a bit like lumping fields of grain in with bags for grain. The one is useful all by itself, the other can't function without some other generator doing its job first.

Typically the use for storage in the form of batteries is to play arbitrage with power prices around solar noon to farm it back out again when power is more expensive, for instance early evening or the next morning. Longer term storage also works but tends to be more capital expensive and isn't really an option just yet, though there are some edge cases where it may already work on (slightly) longer timescales.

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