How much of our electricity is generated from renewable sources?

U.S. power plants used renewable energy sources — water (hydroelectric), wood, wind, organic waste, geothermal, and sun — to generate about 12% of our electricity in 2012.

Renewable energy sources provided about 12% of total U.S. utility-scale electricity generation in 2012. The largest share of the renewable-generated electricity came from hydroelectric power (56%), followed by: wind (28%), biomass wood (8%), biomass waste (4%), geothermal (3%), and solar (1%).

Electricity generation from renewable resources is primarily a function of generation capacity and the availability of the resource. The history of electricity generation has been different for each renewable source.

Nearly all of the hydroelectric capacity was built before the mid-1970s, and much of it is at dams operated by federal government agencies.Biomass waste is mostly municipal solid waste which is burned as fuel to run power plants. Most of the electricity from wood biomass is generated at lumber and paper mills. These mills use their own wood waste to provide much of their own steam and electricity needs. The amount of installed wind generation dramatically increased in the past decade, due in part to Federal financial incentives and State government mandates, especially renewable portfolio standards.Unlike other renewable sources, a significant amount of solar power is generated by small-scale, customer-sited installations like rooftop solar (or, distributed generation). According to the Annual Energy Outlook 2013, these small solar facilities are projected to generate an estimated 14.13 billion kilowatthours of electricity in 2013.1The contribution of renewable sources to electricity generation has evolved differently for each state. See related articles — Today in Energy, May 2, 2012 and May 3, 2012

Hydroelectric generation increases in some years and decreases in others, primarily due to variation in the amounts of rainfall and melting snowfall occurring in watersheds where major hydroelectric dams are located. The availability of biomass (wood and waste) and geothermal energy is generally consistent over the short term as is the generation from these resources. The availability of wind and solar energy has daily and seasonal patterns, so resulting generation fluctuates widely.

China leads the world in total electricity generation from renewable energy due to its recent massive additions to hydroelectric capacity, followed closely by the United States, Brazil, and Canada. However, the United States produces the most electricity from non-hydroelectric renewable sources, followed by China and Germany.

Although most renewable energy power plants have less environmental impact than fossil and nuclear power plants, there are two main reasons why we don't use more renewable energy.

Renewable Energy Technologies Are Often Expensive: Renewable energy power plants can be more expensive to build and to operate (in terms of dollars per unit of electricity output) than natural gas or even coal plants. Renewable Resources Are Often Geographically Remote: Many renewable resources are available only in remote areas, and building transmission lines to deliver power to large metropolitan areas is expensive.

Three kinds of policies to increase the use of renewable energy are:

Tax credits: The Renewable Electricity Production Tax Credit, a federal incentive, has encouraged a major increase in generation from wind and other eligible renewable sources. Targets: Many states have Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), which require electricity providers to generate or acquire a certain portion of their power supplies from renewable sources. However, many RPS programs have "escape clauses" if renewable generation exceeds a cost threshold. See related article — What are renewable portfolio standards and how do they affect generation of electricity from renewable sources? Markets: A number of states have built Renewable Energy Certificates/Credits (RECs) into their Renewable Portfolio Standards. This allows electricity providers to sell renewable energy certificates/credits. Some states have made REC markets mandatory, requiring electricity providers to produce or acquire renewable generation to reduce reliance on fossil fuels to generate electricity. (Detailed information on federal and state renewable energy policies are available from the Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency.)

1See Generation of Solar Photovoltaic under End-use Generators in Appendix Table A16 of the Annual Energy Outlook 2013.

Generation from wind increased from about 6 billion kilowatthours in 2000 to about 140 billion kilowatthours in 2012. Improved technology has decreased the cost of producing electricity from wind, and growth in wind power has been encouraged by policies that support the use of renewable energy sources.

Hydropower provides more electricity than all other renewable sources combined.

Generation from nonhydropower renewables has more than doubled since 1990.

Renewable Portfolio Standards require electricity providers to generate or acquire a percentage of generation from renewable sources.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

How much of the world's electricity supply is generated from wind and who are the leading generators?

Worldwide wind power generation exceeded 250 billion kilowatthours in 2009, which is equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of over 22 million average households in the United States. Wind generation increased by about 20% from 2008 to 2009, and has more than tripled since 2004. This growth is mostly due to capacity increases in the United States, China, India, and Western Europe. Despite this growth, the world still generated only 1% of its total electricity from wind power in 2009

Maintaining its position for two years in a row, the United States led all other countries in wind power generation in 2009. The remaining top-ten wind power generators, listed in descending order, were Germany, Spain, China, India, the United Kingdom, France, Portugal, Denmark, and Italy. Although about 35 countries reported significant wind power generation in 2009, these top-ten countries accounted for more than 85% of all wind generation worldwide. Wind generation in China continues to grow rapidly. Wind generation growth in the country increased by an average of 80% each year since 2004 and doubled from 2008 to 2009.

Nearly 20% of Denmark's electricity generation came from wind in 2009. The next highest levels of wind penetration are found in Portugal at 16%, Spain at 13%, Ireland at 11%, and Germany at 7%. No other country surpassed 5% penetration, including the United States, which generated almost 2% of its electricity from wind in 2009.

According to the World and European Wind Energy Associations, installed global wind capacity reached 197,000 megawatts by the end of 2010, with just over 3,000 MW of that total located offshore. Even though offshore development lags behind onshore, generally due to higher costs and technology constraints, over 1,000 MW were built in 2010. Western Europe is home to nearly all existing offshore capacity; Japan and China have started to add offshore wind farms of their own. As of June 2011, there were no operating offshore wind farms in the United States, although the Department of the Interior approved construction plans for the 420-megawatt Cape Wind project off the Massachusetts coast in April 2011.

Over the lifetime of the plant, electricity from wind power generally costs more than electricity from power plants burning fossil fuels.1 However, wind power is expected to continue to grow worldwide because of favorable government policies. Multiple types of government support exist, including a production tax credit and State renewable electricity portfolio standards in the United States, a feed-in tariff (see the "Did You Know" box on the left) in Germany, and wind capacity targets in China.

1 Although wind farms have relatively low operating costs, capital investment costs are significant. In addition, the intermittent nature of wind results in relatively low capacity factors, such that a wind plant will generate less electricity than a conventional thermal or hydroelectric plant of the same size and over the same period of time. As a result of the high capital costs and intermittency associated with wind, the "levelized cost of electricity" (LCOE) – or the sum of the plant's present value of capital and operating costs, divided by its generation over the plant's lifetime – tends to be higher for wind than for most conventional generation types.
This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

How much of the world's electricity supply is generated from wind and who are the leading generators?

Worldwide wind power generation exceeded 250 billion kilowatthours in 2009, which is equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of over 22 million average households in the United States. Wind generation increased by about 20% from 2008 to 2009, and has more than tripled since 2004. This growth is mostly due to capacity increases in the United States, China, India, and Western Europe. Despite this growth, the world still generated only 1% of its total electricity from wind power in 2009

Maintaining its position for two years in a row, the United States led all other countries in wind power generation in 2009. The remaining top-ten wind power generators, listed in descending order, were Germany, Spain, China, India, the United Kingdom, France, Portugal, Denmark, and Italy. Although about 35 countries reported significant wind power generation in 2009, these top-ten countries accounted for more than 85% of all wind generation worldwide. Wind generation in China continues to grow rapidly. Wind generation growth in the country increased by an average of 80% each year since 2004 and doubled from 2008 to 2009.

Nearly 20% of Denmark's electricity generation came from wind in 2009. The next highest levels of wind penetration are found in Portugal at 16%, Spain at 13%, Ireland at 11%, and Germany at 7%. No other country surpassed 5% penetration, including the United States, which generated almost 2% of its electricity from wind in 2009.

According to the World and European Wind Energy Associations, installed global wind capacity reached 197,000 megawatts by the end of 2010, with just over 3,000 MW of that total located offshore. Even though offshore development lags behind onshore, generally due to higher costs and technology constraints, over 1,000 MW were built in 2010. Western Europe is home to nearly all existing offshore capacity; Japan and China have started to add offshore wind farms of their own. As of June 2011, there were no operating offshore wind farms in the United States, although the Department of the Interior approved construction plans for the 420-megawatt Cape Wind project off the Massachusetts coast in April 2011.

Over the lifetime of the plant, electricity from wind power generally costs more than electricity from power plants burning fossil fuels.1 However, wind power is expected to continue to grow worldwide because of favorable government policies. Multiple types of government support exist, including a production tax credit and State renewable electricity portfolio standards in the United States, a feed-in tariff (see the "Did You Know" box on the left) in Germany, and wind capacity targets in China.

1 Although wind farms have relatively low operating costs, capital investment costs are significant. In addition, the intermittent nature of wind results in relatively low capacity factors, such that a wind plant will generate less electricity than a conventional thermal or hydroelectric plant of the same size and over the same period of time. As a result of the high capital costs and intermittency associated with wind, the "levelized cost of electricity" (LCOE) – or the sum of the plant's present value of capital and operating costs, divided by its generation over the plant's lifetime – tends to be higher for wind than for most conventional generation types.
This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

How much of our electricity is generated from renewable sources?

U.S. power plants used renewable energy sources — water (hydroelectric), wood, wind, organic waste, geothermal, and sun — to generate about 12% of our electricity in 2012.

Renewable energy sources provided about 12% of total U.S. utility-scale electricity generation in 2012. The largest share of the renewable-generated electricity came from hydroelectric power (56%), followed by: wind (28%), biomass wood (8%), biomass waste (4%), geothermal (3%), and solar (1%).

Electricity generation from renewable resources is primarily a function of generation capacity and the availability of the resource. The history of electricity generation has been different for each renewable source.

Nearly all of the hydroelectric capacity was built before the mid-1970s, and much of it is at dams operated by federal government agencies.Biomass waste is mostly municipal solid waste which is burned as fuel to run power plants. Most of the electricity from wood biomass is generated at lumber and paper mills. These mills use their own wood waste to provide much of their own steam and electricity needs. The amount of installed wind generation dramatically increased in the past decade, due in part to Federal financial incentives and State government mandates, especially renewable portfolio standards.Unlike other renewable sources, a significant amount of solar power is generated by small-scale, customer-sited installations like rooftop solar (or, distributed generation). According to the Annual Energy Outlook 2013, these small solar facilities are projected to generate an estimated 14.13 billion kilowatthours of electricity in 2013.1The contribution of renewable sources to electricity generation has evolved differently for each state. See related articles — Today in Energy, May 2, 2012 and May 3, 2012

Hydroelectric generation increases in some years and decreases in others, primarily due to variation in the amounts of rainfall and melting snowfall occurring in watersheds where major hydroelectric dams are located. The availability of biomass (wood and waste) and geothermal energy is generally consistent over the short term as is the generation from these resources. The availability of wind and solar energy has daily and seasonal patterns, so resulting generation fluctuates widely.

China leads the world in total electricity generation from renewable energy due to its recent massive additions to hydroelectric capacity, followed closely by the United States, Brazil, and Canada. However, the United States produces the most electricity from non-hydroelectric renewable sources, followed by China and Germany.

Although most renewable energy power plants have less environmental impact than fossil and nuclear power plants, there are two main reasons why we don't use more renewable energy.

Renewable Energy Technologies Are Often Expensive: Renewable energy power plants can be more expensive to build and to operate (in terms of dollars per unit of electricity output) than natural gas or even coal plants. Renewable Resources Are Often Geographically Remote: Many renewable resources are available only in remote areas, and building transmission lines to deliver power to large metropolitan areas is expensive.

Three kinds of policies to increase the use of renewable energy are:

Tax credits: The Renewable Electricity Production Tax Credit, a federal incentive, has encouraged a major increase in generation from wind and other eligible renewable sources. Targets: Many states have Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), which require electricity providers to generate or acquire a certain portion of their power supplies from renewable sources. However, many RPS programs have "escape clauses" if renewable generation exceeds a cost threshold. See related article — What are renewable portfolio standards and how do they affect generation of electricity from renewable sources? Markets: A number of states have built Renewable Energy Certificates/Credits (RECs) into their Renewable Portfolio Standards. This allows electricity providers to sell renewable energy certificates/credits. Some states have made REC markets mandatory, requiring electricity providers to produce or acquire renewable generation to reduce reliance on fossil fuels to generate electricity. (Detailed information on federal and state renewable energy policies are available from the Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency.)

1See Generation of Solar Photovoltaic under End-use Generators in Appendix Table A16 of the Annual Energy Outlook 2013.

Generation from wind increased from about 6 billion kilowatthours in 2000 to about 140 billion kilowatthours in 2012. Improved technology has decreased the cost of producing electricity from wind, and growth in wind power has been encouraged by policies that support the use of renewable energy sources.

Hydropower provides more electricity than all other renewable sources combined.

Generation from nonhydropower renewables has more than doubled since 1990.

Renewable Portfolio Standards require electricity providers to generate or acquire a percentage of generation from renewable sources.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.