Solar was 22% of new utility capacity in the US
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) has announced it will begin the staged release of the complete Annual Energy Outlook 2014. A recent additive to the growing list of information releases discusses utility scale energy projects and solar is making its mark.
Natural gas-fired power plants accounted for just over 50% of new utility-scale generating capacity added in 2013 making the largest energy growth component for the US leading them further from reliance on oil. Solar provided nearly 22% which is a jump up from less than 6% in 2012. Coal provided 11% and wind nearly 8%. Almost half of all capacity added in 2013 was located in California. In total, a little over 13,500 megawatts (MW) of new capacity was added in 2013, less than half the capacity added in 2012.
Solar photovoltaic (PV) added 2,193 MW of capacity in 2013, continuing the trend of the past few years of strong growth, helped in part by falling technology costs as well as aggressive state renewable portfolio standards (RPS) and continued federal investment tax credits. Nearly 75% of the capacity added was located in California, followed by roughly 10% in Arizona. (Note: these figures do not include distributed capacity under 1 MW. Distributed solar PV capacity additions also grew in 2013, with industry reports estimating nonutility additions of 1,900 MW. Most of this capacity was also located in California.)
After many years of little activity, the solar thermal industry completed several large-scale solar thermal plants in 2013 located in Arizona and California totaling 766 MW of capacity, more than doubling the total solar thermal capacity in the United States. A few more projects are expected to be completed in 2014-16; however, several other announced projectes have since been cancelled or suspended because of a number of challenges such as environmental impacts on desert wildlife and water resources, cost-competitiveness, and delays in transmission development.
California. California added 6,395 MW of capacity, 47% of all capacity added in 2013. The state has added a large amount of new capacity in an effort to deal with a number of problems challenging the state's resource adequacy and grid reliability, including California's once-through cooling water policy, passed in 2010, is requiring power plants using once-through cooling"”a substantial portion of the state's existing capacity"”to either invest in costly retrofits to reduce their water consumption or retire over the next decade. The unexpected outage in 2012, and subsequent permanent retirement in 2013, of the 2,150 MW San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) plant in Southern California further exacerbated the state's near- to mid-term resource adequacy and reliability concerns.
California's Renewable Portfolio Standard policy requires 33% renewable energy by 2020 has led the state's electric utilities to procure new renewable capacity at a far higher rate than any other state. Integrating these growing levels of variable renewable generation has required more flexible resources to maintain grid reliability and to adapt to the grid's evolving generation needs.
