Renewable energy is growing. The extent to which it is growing is remarkable though, with 70 times more renewable capacity added than natural gas (18MW for natural gas vs 1,291MW for renewables).
In the first three months of 2016, the U.S. grid added 18 megawatts of new natural gas generating capacity. It added a whopping 1,291 megawatts (MW) of new renewables.
The renewables were primarily wind (707 MW) and solar (522 MW). We also added some biomass (33 MW) and hydropower (29 MW). The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) latest monthly “Energy Infrastructure Update” reports that no new capacity of coal, oil, or nuclear power were added in the first quarter of the year.
So the U.S. electric grid added more than 70 times as much renewable energy capacity as natural gas capacity from January to March.
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