GCC: EIA: natural gas to represent majority of 2018 electric capacity additions in US

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GRA

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http://www.greencarcongress.com/2018/05/201080507-eia.html

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) expects nearly 32 gigawatts (GW) of new electric generating capacity will come online in the United States in 2018—more than in any year over the past decade. Although renewables such as wind and solar accounted for 98% of the 2 GW added so far this year (based on data for January and February), EIA expects about 21 GW of natural gas-fired generators will come online in 2018. If these generators come online based on their reported timelines, 2018 will be the first year since 2013 in which renewables did not make up a majority of added capacity.

In 2017, renewables accounted for 55% of the 21 GW of US capacity additions, the fourth consecutive year in which renewables made up more than half. As of February 2018, renewables accounted for 22% of total currently operating US electricity generating capacity. . . .

The newly added generating capacity in January and February 2018 included 2,029 megawatts (MW) of renewables, 27 MW of fossil fueled generators, and 28 MW of other technologies, mostly consisting of energy storage batteries. In February 2018, for the first time in decades, all of the new generating capacity coming online within a month were non-fossil-fueled.

Of the 475 MW of capacity that came online in February, 81% was wind, 16% was solar photovoltaic, and the remaining 3% was hydro and biomass.

About half of the 21 GW of natural gas-fired generation capacity EIA expects to come online by the end of 2018 are combined-cycle units to be added to the PJM Regional Transmission Organization, which spans parts of several Mid-Atlantic and Midwestern states. In the PJM region, Pennsylvania plans to add 5.2 GW; Maryland will add 1.9 GW, and Virginia will add 1.9 GW. Most of the new capacity is being added on the eastern side of the PJM region along the Transcontinental, the Dominion Transmission, and the Eastern Texas Transmission Pipelines. . . .
 
I find the claim that more renewable capacity was installed in the years 2013 through 2016 to be more than a bit fallacious since that claim is based purely on nameplate power capacity. If you want to see how much real capacity is being installed, you need to look at the annual energy production capacity, not the nameplate for power.
 
Both nameplate capacity and capacity factor are useful metrics, but only the former was being discussed in this report. For the latter: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_6_07_b

U.S. wind capacity factor has been increasing pretty steadily for at least the past 5 years, from 32.4% in 2013 to 36.7% in 2017, and although some of that may be due to annual variation, the turbines have been getting more efficient right along.
 
GRA said:
Both nameplate capacity and capacity factor are useful metrics, but only the former was being discussed in this report.
That's my point. It is very misleading to tell people that more renewables have ween installed from 2013 through 2017 because in fact the new fossil fuel generators will generate more electricity, so renewables are still actually falling behind.
GRA said:
That's only half the picture, since it only provides the capacity factors for renewables and nuclear. Here is the link for the capacity factors for fossil-fuel-powered generators: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_6_07_a
GRA said:
U.S. wind capacity factor has been increasing pretty steadily for at least the past 5 years, from 32.4% in 2013 to 36.7% in 2017, and although some of that may be due to annual variation, the turbines have been getting more efficient right along.
That's good, but note that the capacity factors for combined-cycle natural gas turbines are higher and also improving (though there was a slight drop in 2016 and 2017). The numbers range from 48.2% in 2013 to 55.9% in 2015.

It's good to see renewables being built out at such a large scale, but, again, the EIA is misleading people by claiming that renewables have been beating out fossil fuels in the past five years. They have not.
 
RegGuheert said:
It's good to see renewables being built out at such a large scale, but, again, the EIA is misleading people by claiming that renewables have been beating out fossil fuels in the past five years. They have not.
The EIA has also been misleading people in the other direction for two decades. There was an article in CleanTechnica about it several months ago. I had a hard time following it, but the gist was that EIA uses the thermal BTU value of fuels for comparison (e.g., the amount of energy INPUT, but NOT the amount of OUTPUT work or usefulness). However, for renewables, they use the amount of electricity OUTPUT (not the amount of solar or wind input). Therefore, the comparison makes the fossil fuel contribution to our energy system much higher than renewables. If the EIA used the incident solar energy (less than 20% is converted to electricity) or wind (less than 50% converted to electricity), then those renewables would "look" much better when compared to fossil fuels. See how easy it is to mislead people?
 
The EIA uses nameplate capacity for the simple reason that capacity factor can vary considerably for the same plant based on local climate, reliability, and operating practices. Where technical limitations don't prevent it, the same plant can be used for baseload or peaking depending on fuel costs, resulting in vastly different capacity factors even though the plant's nameplate capacity hasn't changed. EIA uses nameplate capacity for new construction to avoid all the possible variations. Actual capacity factors are tracked separately, as they should be.
 
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