Renewable energy sources – including wind, solar, biomass, geothermal and hydropower – accounted for nearly 18.0% of net domestic electrical generation during the first three quarters of this year, according to a SUN DAY Campaign analysis of newly released data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Compared to the first nine months of 2017, wind power has grown by 14.5% this year.
In addition, the latest issue of EIA’s “Electric Power Monthly” (with data through September 30, 2018) reveals that wind and solar showed strong growth, with wind growing by 14.5% compared to the first nine months of 2017 and utility-scale solar expanding by 30.3%.
Combined, wind and solar accounted for almost 9% of the nation’s electrical generation (wind – 6.4%, solar – 2.4%) and nearly half (49.7%) of the total from all renewable energy sources.
Modest increases were also reported by EIA for geothermal and biomass — 5.4% and 1.5% respectively. Taken together, non-hydro renewables, including distributed solar, grew by 14.9%. However, a 5.1% drop in hydropower output netted an increase of only 6.0% in electrical generation by all renewables in the first three-quarters of 2018 compared to the same period in 2017.
Notwithstanding its lower production, hydropower remained the leading source of renewable electricity — accounting for 7.05% of total electrical generation, followed by wind (6.41%), solar (2.42%), biomass (1.48%) and geothermal (0.39%).
The decline in hydropower coupled with a 4.9% increase in total electricity produced by all sources (driven primarily by a 15.1% expansion of electrical production by natural gas and a 2.2% increase in nuclear power) resulted in renewables increasing their share of domestic electrical output only marginally—from 17.6% in 2017 to 17.8% in 2018.
That modest gain, though, continued to close the gap between renewables and coal with the latter dropping by 5.4%. Coal now provides 27.0% of the nation’s electrical generation compared to 30.0% a year ago. A decade earlier, coal’s share of U.S. electrical generation was over 48.0%.
Filed Under: News
