Wind, Solar Surpassed 10 Percent of US Electricity In March, Says EIA (thehill.com)

According to the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration, wind and solar produced 10 percent of the electricity generated in the U.S. for the first time in March. The Hill reports: The Energy Information Administration's (EIA) monthly power report for March found that wind produced 8 percent of the electricity produced in the U.S. that month, with solar producing 2 percent. The two sources combined to have their best month ever in terms of percentage of overall electricity production, EIA said. The agency expects the two sources topped 10 percent again in April but forecasts that their generation will fall below that mark during the summer months. Due to the way geographic wind patterns affect the generation of electricity, the two sources typically combine for their best months in the spring and fall. Annually, wind and solar made up 7 percent of electric generation in 2016, EIA said.

Comments

Re:What happens when you eliminate subsidies?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is largely one of engine design. Most cars sold in the US are fairly low compression. Under those conditions, the burning ethanol just adds heat, no real power.

In a high compression engine, especially with a turbo is where ethanol works well. Australia sells a fuel mix that's 85% ethanol which is really popular with performance car owners as you get a lot more power from the same engine.

Corn vs sugar cane

[fred6666]

It depends. Corn ethanol is dumb. Sugar cane ethanol make sense, but that wouldn't help US farmers.

Re:But how much did this electricity cost?

[Jeremi]

I suspect that solar power advocates don't like to talk about the cost of the solar watt-hour because if they did that then the charts would not look so great.

Utility-scale solar power is now selling for less than three cents per kWh. So that would be less than $.00003 per watt-hour.

This compares favorably to coal and other forms of traditional power generation.

My suspicion is that when you think about solar power, you are thinking only about residential rooftop solar power, which is indeed more expensive to due lack of economies of scale. That would be an error, since utility-scale solar power is where the advances in cost-effectiveness are occurring.