Where are Renewables? Where are People?

Deck: 

Utility scale wind in Texas alone produced eight times more power than all the residential solar in the U.S.

Today in Fortnightly

Renewables generated 121.1 million megawatt-hours in the first four months of the year, per the latest Energy Department data. 

That is, in vogue renewables. Excluded are out of vogue renewables: hydro and nuclear.

Utility scale solar generated 9.7 million megawatt-hours. Distributed solar generated 4.6 million.

Of the distributed solar number, 2.4 million was residential solar, 1.8 million was commercial, and 0.4 was industrial.

In percentages, distributed solar was four percent of renewables generation. Residential solar was two percent of renewables generation. Again, leaving out hydro and nuclear.

Residential solar gets all the press. But what about the ninety-eight percent of renewables that's not residential solar?

What are these renewables that toil in obscurity? And where are they?

For the most part, they're blowin' in the wind. Utility scale wind generated 81.0 million megawatt-hours in the first four months. That's sixty-seven percent of renewables generation. Hey media, when you think renewables, think utility scale wind.

Utility scale wind produced thirty-four times more power than residential solar. And it produced eight times more than utility scale solar.

Utility scale wind in Texas alone produced eight times more power than all the residential solar in the U.S. And it produced twice as much as all the utility scale solar in the U.S.

The location of renewable generation is different from the location of the population. In particular, renewables in the fourteen New England, Middle Atlantic and East North Central states produced eighteen percent of U.S. renewable generation. Yet these states have thirty-two percent of U.S. population.

 

Number-crunching, to help sort out our industry's trends, courtesy of Public Utilities Fortnightly.

Steve Mitnick, Editor-in-Chief, Public Utilities Fortnightly

E-mail me: mitnick@fortnightly.com