Every megawatt of new electrical generation capacity in the US in September came from solar or wind power, official figures reveal.
According to the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) September 2012 Energy Infrastructure Update, 433MW of new generation capacity was installed last month. Wind accounted for 300MW of this, solar for the other 133MW.
None of September’s new capacity came from traditional fossil-based sources, although in the preceding eight months the FERC figures show natural gas added over 4.5GW of new capacity and coal over 2.27GW.
This was compared to 936MW for solar over the same period and 4GW for wind.
The figures show that overall the US now has 3.37GW of solar generating capacity in operation, representing 0.29% of the country’s total. Natural gas is by far the US’s most important electrical resource, accounting for 483.92GW — 41.99% — of total capacity.
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