The US Energy Information Administration announced on Monday that for the first time in 2022, electricity generated by renewable energy has exceeded that of coal in the United States.
Akshay also surpasses nuclear production in 2022 after doing so for the first time last year.
Growth in wind and solar significantly outpaced growth in renewable energy and will contribute 14% of domestically generated electricity in 2022.
“I’m glad to see that we’ve crossed that threshold, but this is only step one in a much faster and much cheaper journey,” said Stephen Poder, assistant professor of ecology and sustainability at Brown University Provost.
California produces 26% of national utility-scale solar electricity, followed by Texas at 16% and North Carolina at 8%.
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Most wind production occurred in Texas, which accounted for 26% of the US total, followed by Iowa (10%) and Oklahoma (9%).
“This rapid growth is largely driven by economics,” said Gregory Whetstone, president and CEO of the American Council on Renewable Energy. An even more impressive 90 percent drop.”
“Renewable energy is now the cheapest source of new electricity in most parts of the country,” Whetstone said.
The Energy Information Administration projected that wind’s share of the US electricity generation mix will increase from 11% to 12% from 2022 to 2023 and that solar will increase from 4% to 5% during this period. The share of natural gas is expected to remain at 39% from 2022 to 2023, and that of coal is projected to decline from 20% last year to 17% this year.
“Wind and solar are going to be the backbone of growth in renewable energy, but engineers are debating whether they can provide 100% of American electricity without backup,” said Porder, of Brown University.
Many decisions lie ahead, he said, as the proportion of renewable sources supplying the energy grid grows.
This presents challenges for engineers and policy-makers, Porder said, because existing energy grids were built to deliver electricity from a consistent source. Renewable energy such as solar and wind generate electricity intermittently. So battery storage, long-distance transmission and other steps will be needed to help address these challenges, he said.
The EIA report found the country is heavily reliant on the burning of climate-changing fossil fuels. Coal-fired generation was to account for 20% of the electricity sector in 2022, a decline from 23% in 2021. Natural gas will be the largest source of electricity in the US in 2022, generating 39% in 2021 compared to 37% last year.
“When you look at the data, natural gas has been a major driver for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from electricity because it is largely replacing coal-fired power plants,” says the Center on Global Energy Policy in Colombia said Melissa Lott, director of research at university.
“Going forward, you can’t keep raising emissions, you need to bring them down quickly,” Lott said.
Lott said the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) affected the amount of renewable energy projects coming online in 2022, and it is expected to have a “tremendous” impact on accelerating clean energy projects. ,
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