Renewable Energy = 98% of New Electricity Generation Capacity in February (US)

April 20th, 2015 by Zachary Shahan

Continuing a trend that any regular readers of CleanTechnica have seen very clearly, renewable energy sources dominated new electricity generation capacity additions in the United States in February 2015.

It was actually a quite weak month for utility-scale installations of any sort, which left my estimate of rooftop solar power to take 73% of the pie.

With such a big portion of the pie, an unofficial estimate like this should be taken as such. However, the estimate is based on annual projections from GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) that have proven as solid as anything else out there.

If you just looked at the utility-scale side of the equation, renewables still would have accounted for >94% of new electricity generation capacity, with geothermal accounting for 52%, wind 24%, and solar 18%. Natural gas just added 5 megawatts of capacity in February according to FERC.

Looking at January and February together (including my estimates for non-utility-scale solar), renewables = 89% of all new capacity, and natural gas 11%.

Looking at all installed electricity generation capacity on the grid at the end of February, renewables = 17.5%, with 8.5% of that coming from hydropower, 5.6% from wind, 1.6% from solar, 1.4% from biomass, 0.3% from geothermal, and 0.1% from waste heat. We still have a long way to go.

Check out more US electricity capacity reports here, and US electricity generation reports here.









Appreciate CleanTechnica’s originality? Consider becoming a CleanTechnica member, supporter, or ambassador — or a patron on Patreon.

Sign up for our free daily newsletter or weekly newsletter to never miss a story.

Have a tip for CleanTechnica, want to advertise, or want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.

Latest Cleantech Talk Episode