This article was reposted with permission from Grist.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the agency which informed us that almost half of all new electricity generating capacity added in the U.S. in 2012 was renewable, has released its data for the month of January. You ready for this?
Here’s how January 2013 compares to January 2012 in terms of new capacity:
Notice anything? Let’s spell it out directly. Here’s how new capacity broke down last January. Brownish sources are fossil fuels. Green are renewable.
And here’s this January.
That’s right: Every single megawatt of new generating capacity added in the U.S. last month was renewable. Every single one.
The full dataset from FERC is here [PDF], outlining the constituent additions: 958 megawatts of wind, 267 of solar, and 6 little megawatts of biomass. In total, 1,231 megawatts of capacity were added in January of this year compared to 1,693 in January 2012. The amount of wind and solar added last month was greater than the amount of coal and natural gas added a year ago.
Experts do not expect this no-new-fossil-fuel-generation trend to continue. Sorry.
