20% of U.S. Electricity Supplied by Green Energy
Renewable energy generation accounted for 20.45 percent of total US output, owing to rapid development in solar and wind power. According to recent statistics given by the US EIA office, this occurred during the first three-quarters of 2021.
According to the data, solar and wind energy climbed by 24.61 percent and 10.89 percent, respectively, during the first nine months of 2021. The numbers are in comparison to the same time in the previous year.
They climbed by 15.00 percent altogether and accounted for more than 12.59 percent of total electricity generation in the country. Furthermore, wind and solar combined currently account for more than 61.55 percent of renewable energy output.
Meanwhile, geothermal generated a 2.75 percent increase in electricity. This means non-hydro renewables climbed by 12.8 percent overall.
Unfortunately, due to severe drought conditions, hydropower declined by 12.47 percent. Despite this, all renewables together produced 4.05 percent higher power than the previous year.
Renewable energy sources have also increased their lead over nuclear power. However, while overall power output climbed by 3.26 percent, renewables’ percentage of the total increase is still small.
Natural gas remained the leading source of electrical generating in the United States, accounting for 37.57 percent of total generation. Surprisingly, coal reclaimed the second position with a 22.60 percent market share.
Longer-term projections, on the other hand, continue to point to the progressive and potentially rapid replacement of fossil fuel and nuclear power by alternative energy sources, particularly solar and wind.
In comparison to the first nine months of 2016, fossil power fell by 23.08 percent, while nuclear power fell by 5.33 percent. Meanwhile, renewables’ proportion of overall electricity output has increased from 15.10% to 20.45%. When we look at the statistics more closely, we can find that wind has grown by 65.23 percent and solar has grown thrice.