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Solar Is Top Source of New Capacity On the US Grid In 2016 (arstechnica.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the exceeding-expectations dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The U.S. electric grid continued to transform in 2016. No new coal plants were added, and solar became the top new source of generating capacity. Combined with wind, a small bit of hydro, and the first nuclear plant added to the grid in decades, sources that generate power without carbon emissions accounted for two-thirds of the new capacity added in 2016. These numbers come from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, which asked utilities about what sources they expected to have online at the end of the year. These numbers typically show a burst of activity in December, as projects are raced to completion to take advantage of the tax benefits of reaching operational status in the current year. Overall, the EIA recorded 26 GW of new capacity added to the grid in 2016. This includes a small amount (0.3GW) of new hydropower and a smattering of projects collected under "other" that produce a similar magnitude. Notably absent from the list is coal. Also absent is distributed solar, meaning panels installed on homes and other small-scale projects. Distributed solar accounted for about 2GW of new capacity in 2015, and the EIA notes that the incentives for these projects haven't changed considerably in 2016. Even without that 2GW, solar comes out on top, with 9.5GW of new additions this year. At 8GW, natural gas comes in second place on the EIA's list, followed by wind at 6.8GW. Thanks to the opening of a new reactor at Watts Bar in Tennessee, nuclear also joins the list for the first time in years, adding 1.1GW of capacity. Combined, wind, nuclear, hydro, and solar account for 68 percent of the new additions, making 2016 a low-carbon year for the U.S. grid. Assuming distributed solar this year is similar to its 2015 levels, the percentage of new non-fossil generation goes up above 70.

33 of 192 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Solar rated highest in 2016, but... by 110010001000 · · Score: 2

    Is he going to get me a jerb too?

  2. Total Capacity by cirby · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Not total delivered.

    So when you see that 9.5 gigawatts of solar compared to 8 gigawatts of natural gas, it's more like 3 gigawatts of average solar output versus 7 gigawatts of gas...

    1. Re:Total Capacity by tomhath · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Watts Bar 2 nuclear plant will probably produce more power than that solar "capacity".

    2. Re:Total Capacity by Solandri · · Score: 3, Informative
      They're playing some tricks with the numbers to get capacity factors close to 0.3, which is physically impossible unless all your PV panels are super-high efficiency and track the sun. But this isn't the sort of thing you can just cover up. It's trivial to calculate the actual capacity factor for PV solar:
      • Installed peak capacity at the end of 2014 and 2015 was 18,173 MW and 25,459 MW respectively. So figure average capacity for 2015 was (25459 + 18173)/2 = 21,816 MW.
      • PV solar generation for 2015 was 23,232 GWh.
      • There are 8766 hours in a year (factoring in leap years).
      • (23232 GWh) / (21.816 GW * 8766 hours) = 0.121 capacity factor.

      So that 9.5 GW of solar capacity is only generating about 1.15 GW of power on average. If you add the 2 GW of distributed solar (rooftop panels) it works out to 1.39 GW average generation.

      Natural gas is a bit of a wild card, since it (and hydro) is typically used to follow peaking demand. That is, you don't run them full tilt. They top off power generation to match demand. But its (and hydro's) capacity factor is historically around 0.40. So NG's 8 GW translates into 3.2 GW of average generation. Hydro's 0.3 GW translates into 0.12 GW of average generation.

      Wind's capacity factor is about 0.25. So its 6.8 GW capacity works out to 1.7 GW of average generation.

      Nuclear's capacity factor is about 0.9. So the lone new nuclear plant at 1.1 GW capacity translates into 1 GW of average generation.

      So in terms of actual power generation:

      • Gas = 3.2 GW
      • Wind = 1.7 GW
      • PV solar = 1.15 GW (or 1.39 GW)
      • Nuclear = 1.0 GW
      • Hydro = 0.12 GW
    3. Re:Total Capacity by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 3, Informative

      to get capacity factors close to 0.3, which is physically impossible unless all your PV panels are super-high efficiency

      How did you conclude that panel efficiency impacts capacity factors? That doesn't make sense. Efficiency as a multiplier scales both maximum and average generation from a unit of insolated surface. The ratio of these two therefore shouldn't change (modulo possible spectral sensitivity effects for direct insolation vs. overcast for the different technologies, but these aren't in any simple way connected to overall efficiency).

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    4. Re:Total Capacity by WolfWithoutAClause · · Score: 4, Informative

      No, actually pretty similar on average; the solar may even edge it. The nuclear reactor obviously has higher power at night, but much lower power during the day than the solar. The average capacity factor of solar is about 10-20% depending on location, so 9GW of solar will produce somewhere between 0.9GW and 1.8GW on average, whereas this is a 1.2GW reactor; and the solar was installed much, much more quickly, and probably cost roughly the same or even less than the nuclear.

      --

      -WolfWithoutAClause

      "Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"
    5. Re:Total Capacity by pointybits · · Score: 4, Interesting

      They're playing some tricks with the numbers to get capacity factors close to 0.3, which is physically impossible unless all your PV panels are super-high efficiency and track the sun. But this isn't the sort of thing you can just cover up. It's trivial to calculate the actual capacity factor for PV solar:

      • Installed peak capacity at the end of 2014 and 2015 was 18,173 MW and 25,459 MW respectively. So figure average capacity for 2015 was (25459 + 18173)/2 = 21,816 MW.
      • PV solar generation for 2015 was 23,232 GWh.
      • There are 8766 hours in a year (factoring in leap years).
      • (23232 GWh) / (21.816 GW * 8766 hours) = 0.121 capacity factor.

      Yeah sure, there's a conspiracy to cover up the real numbers. Or, you know, you might have botched your calculations. You took the solar output from large utilities only and divided it by the total solar capacity including distributed generation.

      Solar capacity factors of >25% are relatively easy in the sun belt and can go as high as 36% with tracking and a high panel-to-inverter ratio (Lawrence Berkely study, 2014 figures).

    6. Re:Total Capacity by blindseer · · Score: 2

      You are five to ten times more likely to die from slipping off the roof by cleaning your solar panels than you would from any nuclear power accident.
      http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2...
      http://www.forbes.com/sites/ja...

      Of all the energy sources by carbon footprint the ones with the lowest emissions per energy produced are wind, tidal, hydro, nuclear, and geothermal. Solar doesn't even make the top five.

      Solar is a loser on "death footprint", carbon footprint, and cost. Since geothermal, wind, tidal, and hydro require favorable geography nuclear really wins out here. This is especially true since solar is just as dependent on favorable weather and geography as the others I listed. If you want to dispute the carbon footprint stats then that's fine, I'll concede that if you want to dispute it but only to a point. Nuclear is still a "zero carbon" energy source as defined by whatever definition that also includes wind, solar, geothermal, hydro, or tidal. If you claim that nuclear is not "zero carbon" then solar isn't either. If you want to fear monger on nuclear power then you need to do so knowing all the facts.

      I'm sure thinking of dead solar power workers will make you sleep better at night. Now go sleep on that.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    7. Re:Total Capacity by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 2

      First of all the capacity factor is not related to efficiency.
      If I produce 1GW with a 4GW panel because it is only 25% efficient has nothing to do with the capacity factor which is basically only the number of sun hours per year.
      Furthermore in your bullshit calculation it would make much more sense to use GWh produced, and not GW 'adjusted to capacity factor' because in full sunlight a 4 GW solar panel will surprisingly produce: 4GW, hence the nameplate.

      Bottom line: you should stop using metrics from which you don't know how to use them properly.

      Hint: when do you need most power? When does the solar plant deliver its most power? Then again: how much power do you need at night? Are you confident your gas or nuclear plant is actually utilized when most people are sleeping, or is it powered down? Just as the solar plant is? Hu?

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    8. Re:Total Capacity by blindseer · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It does not really matter if you fall from the roof cleaning a solar panel or cleaning a chimney.
      Both can be avoided by following safety standards.

      Understood but historically speaking more people have died from solar than nuclear. We cannot expect solar to ever reach zero on deaths, just like we can't from nuclear either. What we can expect is that while solar power is improving its safety record that nuclear power will as well. Nuclear power has it's slip and fall accidents too, we can fix that just as well as with solar but nuclear already starts with a good lead. As of today, right now, solar is a more deadly than nuclear and by an order of magnitude. Claiming that solar will improve and nuclear will not is speculation.

      The carbon footprint of solar panels approaches zero. The only carbon dioxide produced is basically the transportation of raw material and finalized products to the installation place! If you take that into account then the carbon footprint of nuclear plants are a nightmare. They produce over their life span nearly the same amount as a similar coal plant does.

      What color is the sky in your world? I have to ask because claiming that nuclear power would ever get to the level of coal is insanity. If you had instead claimed that wind and/or solar had a lower carbon footprint than nuclear by something like an order of magnitude then we might have a sane discussion. I might not be disputing the carbon footprint but instead focus on things like the benefits of nuclear being able to operate in any weather, needing much less land/steel/resources, and improved capacity factor. Claiming that nuclear power could even get close to producing as much CO2 as coal is just beyond the pale.

      All power plants, that includes nuclear plants, need a favorable place. The main reason why Germany did mot build more before the decision to abolish them is that Germany has no space left where we could build one. Except the option to upgrade an existing one with another reactor.

      This is demonstrably false. Nuclear power reactors can be operated in very confined spaces safely. They are running right now in submarines and aircraft carriers without incident and in very close proximity to people for decades at a time. This fear of nuclear power over nonexistent safety problems is hurting the environment and therefore hurting real and actual living people.

      Same for France btw. That is the main reason France is buying so much power from Germany and in parallel is investing in renewables. Climate change is hitting Germany and France noticeable already: less snow in winter means far less water in summer in the rivers. Which means: shut down nuclear plants due to environmental regulations regarding temperature of water in the rivers. Or simple lack of water.

      If we are going to speculate on the future advances of solar power to include improvements on safety and carbon footprint then I am going to speculate on air cooled nuclear reactors. Air cooling requires no water source, therefore your claims of a lack of proper water cooling preventing nuclear power use is not relevant. Even if we limit this to current technology I get back to the use of nuclear reactors in naval vessels. Build the nuclear reactor on a floating platform off shore, where the reactor is literally sitting in coolant, and run wires to the shore to transmit the power. If we can run wires under water to connect the UK to France to spread out the benefits of wind and solar power then running wires to a nuclear reactor at sea should be trivial by comparison.

      I've actually heard of people claiming we should cover large portions of the Sahara desert with solar panels, run wires from there to Europe so they can benefit from carbon free energy. If that makes any kind of sense in the realms of logic, economics, and physics, then so should putting nuclear reactors out in the sands of Africa and running

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    9. Re:Total Capacity by Rei · · Score: 2

      Indeed. Up to a certain point adding more solar actually makes load following easier. Also, wind and solar tend to run opposite each other: solar peaks in the day, while wind peaks at night; high pressure systems bring low wind and high sun, while low pressure systems bring high wind and low sun; etc.

      Solar and wind both benefit greatly however from a HVDC grid, to allow for timeshifting - aka, people using power after the sun's gone down from a place where the sun is still up, and vice versa. The last study I read on the topic (in Nature) calculated the cost of the grid for the US at 0.3 cents per kilowatt hour, but saving 1.1 cents per kWh in peaking costs.

      Nuclear makes terrible peaking or load-following. The economics of nuclear is already disastrous, even with the government picking up the liability for catastrophic coverage (which no private company would insure - what insurance company would take on, say, the $200B Fukushima liability?). Capital costs of $10/W or more are common - not counting operations and decommissioning. But these economics figures are based around the concept of 85-90% capacity factor. If you start running it as load following, or worse peaking, then your capacity factor plummets, and your price per watt correspondingly skyrockets.

      Peaking plants are generally fossil plants because the plant isn't very expensive, maybe $1 a watt or so. Most of the costs of a fossil plant are in the fuel. Hydro also functions well as peaking and load following.

      --
      "... even though he sins so much that people cast him out of demons."
  3. Want to guess why? by kenh · · Score: 2, Funny

    No new coal plants were added, and solar became the top new source of generating capacity.

    Want to guess why? Because one is subsidized and the other was successfully taxed and regulated out of existence.

    --
    Ken
    1. Re:Want to guess why? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Because one is subsidized and the other was successfully taxed and regulated out of existence.

      Exactly. It is totally unfair that coal plants had to stop spewing soot and sulfuric acid into the atmosphere. We need to make America great again!

    2. Re:Want to guess why? by santiago · · Score: 4, Informative

      No new coal plants were added, and solar became the top new source of generating capacity.

      Want to guess why? Because one is subsidized and the other was successfully taxed and regulated out of existence.

      No, it's for the same reason there was no capacity added from burning whale oil, namely that it's not economical. Natural gas (#2 on that list) is what kicked coal to the curb, not environmental regulation. There's lots of articles covering this, such as this one from not-exactly-a-bastion-of-liberal-thought Reason magazine.

    3. Re:Want to guess why? by belthize · · Score: 2

      Not counting cutting wood on your farm, name one energy source that wasn't subsidized as it replaced the prevailing source. Camphor oil, whale oil, kerosene, oil, coal, nuclear, hydro have all been the beneficiary of federal subsidies, some much more than others.

      If you own coal futures and want to see them do well you'd be much better off blowing up some natural gas refineries than worrying about solar.

    4. Re: Want to guess why? by zieroh · · Score: 5, Informative

      Do you imagine that the federal government cuts checks to oil companies?

      Yes, I do.

      --
      People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
    5. Re:Want to guess why? by whoever57 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Want to guess why? Because one is subsidized and the other was successfully taxed and regulated out of existence.

      This is complete bullshit. The reason is simpler: natural gas because cheaper. Coal was out-competed by fracking.

      The free market killed coal, not regulations.

      The only way coal will continue is if it is subsidized more than it is already (by not having to clean up the mess created by coal).

      --
      The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
    6. Re:Want to guess why? by CaptainDork · · Score: 2

      This.

      We have so much goddam natural gas we export it.

      U.S. Liquefied Natural Gas Exports Reach A New Market And Continue To Climb In 2016. In the first six months of this year, nearly 50 Bcf of U.S. LNG was exported. We will be surging to a dominant role in less than five years, with five terminals operating on the Gulf Coast and in Maryland by 2020.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    7. Re:Want to guess why? by WolfWithoutAClause · · Score: 2

      Asthma is as American as Apple Pie.

      --

      -WolfWithoutAClause

      "Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"
    8. Re: Want to guess why? by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2

      It is the governments responsibility to secure the nations energy sources. At any cost. Plus the government also subsidizes the growing alternative energy sources using tax credits. Subsidizing the oil companies also help to keep the price low to the consumer.

      That's all fine, but let's not pretend that the subsidies aren't really subsidies and that we never "cut a check" to the oil companies.

      If you don't have a problem with it, I don't have a problem with the government picking winners and losers, but let's pick winners that aren't going to fuck things up for us down the road.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    9. Re:Want to guess why? by Darinbob · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If I was one of the leaders in the coal industry, I most certainly would tell the angry workers with pitchforks that it was the government's fault that they were laid off. I certainly wouldn't want to tell them the truth that it was because they weren't making me enough money.

  4. Re:Solar rated highest in 2016, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Other sources of power are already legal and in use currently.

    Let's put the numbers in perspective direct from the EIA:

    Coal 33%, NG 33%, Nuclear 20%, Hydro 6%, Petroleum 1%, Biomass 1.6%, Wind 4.7%, Geothermal 0.4% and....

    solar 0.6%. (yeah, 0.3% if it adds to 100%, thanks to EIA for the rounding error)

    So in 2017 solar might hit 1% and probably max out. NG will continue to increase with easy access to fuel. Coal is declining although may stabilize. Renewables will be around but probably will never top 10%.

    Nothing to do with any administration, these are just economic facts.

  5. Re:Solar rated highest in 2016, but... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And they will still Build Natural Gas plants not Coal.

    Indeed. Even if Trump was able to relax environmental requirements for coal (highly unlikely) there is no reason to believe that even more stringent requirements won't be slapped back on in four or eight years. Only a fool would build a new coal plant today. In America, none are being built or even planned. Coal is dead.

  6. Solar for your home by FrankHaynes · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Florida voters narrowly (and surprisingly, to me) defeated a constitutional amendment that was funded by Florida Power & Light and other very interested parties that would have made it difficult and expensive to install solar power in the home. A rare victory for common sense in Florida.

    http://www.miamiherald.com/new...

    Google tells me that a ballot initiative by the Good Guys failed to achieve enough signatures to make the 2016 ballot (due to some scam artistry by the polling company they hired) so they will try for the 2018 ballot.

    https://ballotpedia.org/Florid...

    I'm not comfortable with amending the Constitution for something as specific as this, but I suppose they figure the legislature could be bought out by the incumbent power companies if it were a mere lowly law on the books.

    --
    slashdot: A failed experiment.
    1. Re:Solar for your home by Anubis350 · · Score: 2

      There's a depressing irony in a battle over whether people should be allowed solar panels on their homes in the "sunshine state"

      --
      "goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
  7. Re:Solar rated highest in 2016, but... by mmell · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Coal is dead.

    Not any more. Have you looked at who's going to head the Environmental Petroleum Agency starting next year? Coal may not be petroleum, but I'm sure the EPA will conclude that coal is no more environmentally unfriendly than petroleum.

  8. Re:Solar rated highest in 2016, but... by TroII · · Score: 2

    Considering his appointees so far, my guess is he'll put you in charge of NASA.

    --
    "If there was a gay Afro-Puertorican Linux distribution, I'd give it a try" ~lucm
  9. Re:Solar rated highest in 2016, but... by Dan+East · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The market is going to do whatever is cheapest. It is now cheaper to get natural gas out of the ground because of fracking, and the reserves available are so massive that it makes sense to invest in natural gas powerplants as they will be supplied with cheap fuel for a very long time. It is also cheap to burn natural gas because it doesn't require scrubbing and other processing of the emissions to reduce pollution.

    The price of solar has continued to drop - panels have been way under a dollar a watt for a while now ($0.79 a watt buying 6,000W of panels at a time, and I'm sure power companies get even better deals buying bigger quantities). The way these are now being utilized (just fed into the grid when they can produce power without battery storage, inverters, etc) is very economical for power companies to invest in.

    Coal, on the other hand, is relatively expensive and labor-intensive to get out of the ground, even when strip mining. Further, it takes expensive scrubbers to remove pollutants from the exhaust when it is burnt, which further increases the cost to use coal. Both of those factors combined (fracking and solar prices dropping) simply make other sources of energy cheaper to produce and utilize than coal for generating electricity.

    If you were to ask the question "Why didn't we start doing this 20 years ago?" the answer is because we didn't have the technology to mass produce solar this inexpensively, and we didn't have the technology to produce natural gas this inexpensively.

    --
    Better known as 318230.
  10. Cue the trolls by iris-n · · Score: 4, Informative

    Argh, the comments section of Slashdot is getting completely unreadable when the subject is something that is even vaguely related to global warming. Hordes of trolls rush to tell us that the globe is not warming, that this is all just a vast conspiracy by all the scientists in the world to get more research money.

    Come on, can't we get something interesting? I remember that even last year there would be plenty of comments talking about insolation, capacity, load balancing, grid-level storage, price, subsidies, etcetera. Now it's just this nutjob shitfest.

    --
    entropy happens
  11. Re: Solar rated highest in 2016, but... by rahvin112 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Current panel prices are sub $0.40 a watt wholsale and install costs have begun to fall as fast as panel prices. IIRC installed pricing is now arround $2.50 a watt, this is a price I never thought we would see. 5 years ago it was nearly $5 a watt installed.

  12. Re:Yei first Offshore wind farm operational in U.S by dunkelfalke · · Score: 3, Informative

    No you aren't . US wind power capacity is 75 GW. EU wind power capacity is over 140 GW - and that is just EU, not the whole Europe.

    --
    "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
  13. Re:Yei first Offshore wind farm operational in U.S by thegarbz · · Score: 2

    Comparing the EU to the USA in terms of where they build their Wind is like asking why there's no awesome swimming beaches right off the Norwegian fjords. The geography of one area is of a huge benefit to off-shore wind (very shallow waters in wind generating regions), while the USA's geography is far more beneficial to onshore wind (most of the USA coast has a very steep cliff just off the coast, that makes it good for surfing but not so much for construction.

    The USA has 48800 wind turbines. With a capacity of 75000 GW. Europe has 120000 GW of wind capacity, but more than double the population of the USA.

  14. Re:Solar rated highest in 2016, but... by CanadianMacFan · · Score: 2

    NASA is very important to the Republicans even if they don't want it doing Earth science. It is very efficient at distributing government spending across the country and no politician will want to miss their chance at getting their more than their "fair share".