Data from the latest Energy
Infrastructure Update report just released from the
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s Office of Energy Projects shows that 100
percent of new U.S. electrical generating capacity put into service for July
came from renewable energy sources.
Those sources include 379 megawatts (MW)
from wind energy, 21 MW of solar power and 5 MW of hydropower.
July follows on the trend of previous months of
2014. For the first seven months of the year renewable energy sources
contributed 53.8 percent of all new electrical generating capacity, for a total
of 4,758 MW coming online.
None
of those other sources were coal or nuclear, which has added no new generating
capacity to date in 2014.
“This is not the first time in recent years that all new electrical generating capacity for a given month has come from renewable energy sources,” noted Ken Bossong, Executive Director of the SUN DAY Campaign. “And it is likely to become an ever more frequent occurrence in the months and years ahead.”
The installed generating capacity from
renewable sources of energy is now 16.3 percent of the U.S. total. The
breakdown is 8.57 percent from hydro, 5.26 percent from wind, 1.37 percent
from biomass, 0.75 percent from solar and 0.33 from geothermal.
Image
credit: Jonathan Potts,
courtesy flickr