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In 2023, Non-Fossil Fuel Sources Will Account for 86% of New Electric Utility Generation Capacity in the United States

FOTW #1304, August 21, 2023: In 2023, Non-Fossil Fuel Sources Will Account for 86% of New Electric Utility Generation Capacity in the United States

https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1304-august-21-2023-2023-non-fossil-fuel-sources-will-account-86-new

Amid the transition to an electrified transportation sector, efforts to decarbonize the U.S. power grid are evident in the planned additions and retirements of utility-scale electricity generating capacity.

FOTW #1304, August 21, 2023: In 2023, Non-Fossil Fuel Sources Will Account for 86% of New Electric Utility Generation Capacity in the United States

9 comments

MrMakabar

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Just to say it, this means less fossil fuel capaciy in the US. There are 7.85GW of new natural gas power plants and 5.22GW will be retired. So 2.63GW of added natural gas. At the same time 9.52GW of coal will be retired, meaning a net loss of 6.86GW of fossil fuel power plant capacity.

Also worth to mention that fossil fuel power plants do not have to operate all the time. Especially in grids with a lot of fossil fuels this does not happen and the US is adding a lot of those. Even more striking is that large amount of new battery storage capacity, which is going to reduce the need for fossil fuels even further.

mookulator

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Am I reading this right?

This source says we generate 4 trillion kilowatt hours annually, which is 40 million gigawatt hours.

The link in the post says we’re adding 48 gigawatts of renewables (56*86%) this year and taking away 14.5 gigawatts of fossil fuels.

That… seems like not enough

silence7

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You're comparing GW (nameplate capacity, how much it can generate at a given instant) with GWH (amount generated over the course of a year) which makes things look a lot worse than it is.

It's stlll not enough; I'm expecting the rate of decarbonization to pick up as the factories to support it are finished

mookulator

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Oh thanks. Glad I was misreading something.

RoboGroMo

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a lot of infrastructure developments are nearing completion too which makes it easier to integrate new renewable projects, hopefully we'll see an increase in tied usage for industries which can best make use of power at peek times as a way of stabilising the grid - when it's windy they make hydrogen or extract carbon from the air using the excess energy then turn off when power generation levels fall, the more this replaces traditional constant use systems the easier it and more productive it is to add renewables to the grid especially at scale.

A similar thing is likely to emerge with electric cars, e-bikes, and other battery devices, smart meter tariffs which allow people to set it to only charge when the grid has power to spare and prices are lower - if they're paired with home solar and localised generation then it could really help take the pressure off long distance transmission lines.

mr_washee_washee

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the amount generated is more relevant. stating capacity is misleading: ofc higher amount generated implies higher capacity.

1gw solar power plant will produce (random numbers) 4gwh in 4 hours per day ( in summer it produces 10gwh in 10 hours per summer day, and 2gwh in 2 hours per winter day, 4 kinda annual average, again, random.. ) so in a year, it produces 4*365= 1460gwh, when 100% uptime, less if there is downtime. fossil for exemple: 1gw fossil plant produces 24gwh per day, thats 8760gwh per year but with 100% year long uptime: 20% downtime->7008gwh only, so on and so forth..stating capacity is misleading, show us productions graphs that could help judge how much generated in said area per year.

silence7

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Sure...but don't use capacity to compare directly with amount generated. Mixing units like that in a comparison tends to result in nonsense answers.

schroedingershat

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Capacity measures capacity.

Demanding people talk about average power when they're talking about capacity is idiotic.

If you have a 1GW load to run for two hours at midnight on a winter day 1GWac solar array is useless. So is a 200MW fossil fuel plant which generates the same average power over the year. If you need to run 1GW of AC during the hottest hours of the year, the solar array is pretty good, but the 200MW thermal plant is still useless.

A 200MW OCGT peaker that runs for 2 hours in california during summer is fully replaced by a 200MW 2 hour hattery array because it will never be short of energy to charge.

The industry standard measure is watts.

Pretending a gas peaker is the same as a coal plant whilst pearl clutching that capacity is being discussed is disingenuous nonsense.

YaaAsantewaa

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Then why did Joe Biden approve of more fossil fuel production? He's been so far worse then any other President

MrMakabar

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Very simple. Russia invaded Ukraine. That meant the entire West mostly stopped purchasing Russian fossil fuel. Saudi Arabia the leader of OPEC is unwilling to increase oil production to replace Russian production, as in 2019 the US was unwilling to defend the Saudis against Iranian missile attacks. So the US needs to find a way to give Europe enough oil and that means increasing its own production. Similar story with gas. Europe needs more LNG and the US has it.

However it also means Russia is in a hard position and the Saudis did already cut production. Chinas economy is struggeling and that will lower needs.

One huge thing Biden did well however is massivly increase investment into green technology. Building up renewables at a massive pace, setting up electric vehicle factories, battery factories and so forth in the US. That should lower US fossil fuel demand, combined with high prices for fossil fuels. However the US is behing the curve in going green for some time now.