US 2015 Scheduled Energy Capacity Expected To Feature Wind & Gas
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The US Energy Information Administration has released numbers which show that wind and natural gas will make up the majority of new 2015 capacity additions, amidst 20 GW of new utility-scale generating capacity.
The additions will be dominated by wind, which is expected to add 9.8 GW of utility-scale capacity, and natural gas, with 6.3 GW. Solar will add another 2.2 GW, which all-told will account for 91% of total additions for 2015.
Conversely, nearly 16 GW of generating capacity is expected to retire in 2015, of which 81%, or 12.8 GW, is coal-fired.
“The addition of more natural gas, solar, and wind generating capacity follows the pattern of the past several years,” said the EIA’s Tim Shear. “Although most states have a planned addition of some type this year, a few trends have emerged.”
The EIA highlighted these trends, which included wind additions focusing primarily in the Plains states. Nearly 8.4 GW, or 85% of total wind additions in 2015 are expected to be developed between North Dakota and Minnesota in the north, to Texas and New Mexico in the south.
Utility-scale solar additions above 1 MW are dominated by California and North Carolina, with 1.2 GW and 0.4 GW respectively (which clearly shows how in control California is currently, as was made clear in the recent GTM Research and Solar Energy Industries Association US Solar Market Insight, 2014 Year-in-Review report).
Natural gas additions are expected throughout the country, though Texas is adding more than double any other state, with 1.7 GW, or 27% of total new natural gas additions. Another 26% of new additions are spread along the Mid-Atlantic region.
As for coal-fired plants coming offline, these are “smaller and operate at a lower capacity factor than average coal-fired units in the United States.”
“The large number of coal-fired generator retirements is primarily because of the implementation of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) this year, although some units have been granted extensions to operate through April 2016,” explained Shear.
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