So much solar: Digging into the list of every US power plant that went online this year
It’s been a wild first half of the year in the US power sector, with announcements of gigantic natural gas power plants and some long-awaited renewable energy projects coming online. At times of rapid change, forecasting is difficult. So I feel a measure of comfort focusing on something concrete like the list of 368 utility-scale plants that began operation from January to June, according to data from the US Energy Information Administration . The group is dominated by utility-scale solar. This is a top-heavy list, led by SunZia Wind South and SunZia Wind North in New Mexico , which went online this spring and are the largest wind farms in the country, with a combined generating capacity of 3,650 megawatts. SunZia has been in the works for about a decade and arrives at a time when US onshore wind power development has dwindled for a host of reasons related to regulations and public opinion. Read full article Comments
It’s been a wild first half of the year in the US power sector, with announcements of gigantic natural gas power plants and some long-awaited renewable energy projects coming online.
At times of rapid change, forecasting is difficult. So I feel a measure of comfort focusing on something concrete like the list of 368 utility-scale plants that began operation from January to June, according to data from the US Energy Information Administration . The group is dominated by utility-scale solar.
Utility-scale solar leads by a mile, followed by batteries. Fossil fuels, not so much.
In other words, the SunZia is not indicative of an onshore wind-energy boom. It is more like an echo from a past boom.
Next is Trumbull Energy Center in Ohio , a 900-megawatt combined-cycle natural gas plant that is part of an expansion of natural gas power in the PJM Interconnection grid region, which covers parts of the Mid-Atlantic, Midwest and South.
