US: 100% of new generating capacity in July renewable

Share

While in 2014 natural gas continues to be the largest source for new generation capacity added to U.S. grids, solar, wind and hydropower have dominated the figures for July. Figures from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) show that two wind, two hydro and five solar generating facilities were the only new generation capacity added during the month.

Solar’s share of the July capacity adds totaled 21 MW, behind wind, which saw two facilities responsible for 379 MW completed, but ahead of hydro, which had two new facilities adding 5 MW of capacity.

Somewhat surprisingly, four of the five large solar arrays connected to the grid in July weren’t in the states typically thought of solar powerhouses like California. The arrays were spread across Indianapolis, Massachusetts, Vermont and Maryland.

Blue Energy completed the 9 MW Indianapolis Motor Speedway Solar Farm, Renewable Energy 10 connected the 5.9 MW Lancaster Solar Project in Massachusetts, the 2.5 MW Clarendon Solar Farm went online, as did Ikea’s 2.4 MW Perryville Distribution Center’s expansion project. The Ikea site will consume the electricity generated on site while the other projects have signed PPAs.

Looking at H1 2014, 9.5 GW of new generating capacity was added to U.S. grids, of which solar accounted for 1.297 GW across 156 projects. This compares to 5.277 GW of new gas generation, 1.543 GW of coal 963 MW of wind and 116 MW of hydropower. That solar comes in third place, and so close to new coal capacity, is testament to the rapid growth of the industry. Small-scale generation is also not included in the FERC figures.

In terms of total generation solar remains a minnow, albeit a fast growing one. Solar accounts for only 0.75% of total generating capacity in the U.S., with 9.31 GW installed – according to the FERC figures. In 2013, the U.S. added 2.2 GW of PV in installations larger than 1 MW.

The most recent FERC figures were released in its Energy Infrastructure Update for July 2014.

Popular content

This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.

Share

Related content

Elsewhere on pv magazine...

Leave a Reply

Please be mindful of our community standards.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.

Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.

You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.

Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.