The U.S. solar industry expects to add a record 32 gigawatts (GW) of production capacity this year, up 53% on new capacity in 2022 and helped by investment incentives under the Inflation Reduction Act, a report published on Thursday showed.
32 GW is a lot. The average thermal coal generating station in the US is 1GW and these stations have an average capacity of 50%. That means that this colar prodution capacity enables us to displace 64 coal stations during the daytime if consumption does not grow.
What’s the total power consumption of the USA? Just want to know how much this makes up.
For those who’re more familiar with solar, will there be an issue with solar panel farms taking up land (which may cause environmental issues)? Wonder if there’s a balance to be struck there.
Looks like 4200 gigawatts/yr. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-in-the-us-generation-capacity-and-sales.php
So not quite 1% even. Progress is progress, I guess.
What is scary is that barely 1% represents a hella lot of coal plants.
Actually, it looks like renewables have overtaken coal, with the majority of fossil fuel energy being provided by natural gas plants. I’m personally fine with newer LNG plants, since they (1) are actually quite clean, and (2) burn a byproduct that we get from making gasoline.
Source: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3
Last i saw the US had just got to the point of having more solar generation than coal, it’s a great milestone because in this broken world it means we’ll have not solar lobbyists than coal lobbyists
I think you mean Twh not Gwh… For reference Norway produces about 150 Twh a year
I’m honestly not sure. Their mixed use of billions, trillions, kilo, giga, etc was confusing me.
His unit was GW, not GWh. Maybe you are talking about the same if you multiply by 365x24.
That’s 4200 TWh/year, or 480 GW.
Though that ignores the power consumption that isn’t electrical yet, like transportation and heating.
Re: land use, see: agrivoltaics - dual, symbiotic use for solar + agriculture. They work very well together.