NEW ENERGY TAKING OVER
Scheduled 2015 capacity additions mostly wind and natural gas; retirements mostly coal
March 10, 2015 (U.S. Energy Information Administration)
“In 2015, electric generating companies expect to add more than 20 gigawatts (GW) of utility-scale generating capacity to the power grid. The additions are dominated by wind (9.8 GW), natural gas (6.3 GW), and solar (2.2 GW), which combine to make up 91% of total additions. Because different types of generating capacity have very different utilization rates, with nuclear plants and natural gas combined-cycle generators having utilization factors three to five times those of wind and solar generators, capacity measures alone do not directly show how much generation is actually provided…Nearly 16 GW of generating capacity is expected to retire in 2015, 81% of which (12.9 GW) is coal-fired generation…The addition of more natural gas, solar, and wind generating capacity follows the pattern of the past several years…Wind additions are largely found in the Plains states…Utility-scale solar additions of systems with at least one megawatt of capacity are dominated by two states—California (1.2 GW) and North Carolina (0.4 GW)…Natural gas additions are spread throughout the country, but Texas is adding more than double any other state (1.7 GW, 27% of total natural gas additions)…Generator retirements are heavily composed of coal-fired generation, with nearly 13 GW expected to be retired in 2015…” click here for more
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