US Electricity From Wind Beat Hydro For 1st Time Ever In November (Exclusive)

March 26th, 2015 by Zachary Shahan

The US Energy Information Administration now has electricity generation figures up for December 2014, but one of our readers, Christopher Patusky, actually spotted a very interesting milestone from November that I think was widely missed: wind power produced more electricity than hydropower for the month as a whole… for the first time in history.

Originally, the numbers from the EIA showed that wind power produced 18,997 GWh of electricity, and hydro 18,647 GWh (as in my charts below). However, the EIA report for December shows that wind hit 19,055 GWh and hydro 18,712 GWh in November. Either way, wind power beat hydropower, and for the first calendar month in history.

That was also wind power’s biggest month ever in the US.

Wind didn’t beat hydro for the full year of course, but Christopher brought up the possibility of it doing so in 2015 or 2016, with both of us thinking that the annual crossover is more likely to happen in 2016.

As regular CleanTechnica readers must know, wind power capacity has been growing at a good clip. In November, it accounted for 31% of new US power capacity. It then accounted for 33% of new capacity in December, and it accounted for 55% of new capacity in January 2015. The way the boom-and-bust tax credit for wind power has been structured in the past few years, 2015 and 2016 should be big years for wind power capacity growth. It’ll be fun to see wind rising to new heights!









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