Solar voltaic energy production nearly doubles in U.S. in 2014

Here's some good news that may brighten up your day: US electrical generation from renewables hits 14.3%. Dennis Schroeder of NREL reports that U.S. solar power generation more than doubled in the first half of 2014 according to a new report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Data from the EIA’s latest Electric Power Monthly report indicates non-hydro renewables, including solar, wind, geothermal and biomass, made up a 7.3% share of electrical generation, while conventional hydropower accounted for 7%. ...

Solar-generated electricity more than doubled, growing by 115.7%, while wind power increased by 9% compared to last year, accounting for 5% of the nation's electrical generation during the first six months of the year. Biomass also grew by 4%. Geothermal power, however, dipped by 1.5% and conventional hydropower declined by 4.2%. ...

"Not long ago, EIA was forecasting that renewables would not reach 14% of U.S. electrical generation until the year 2040," noted Ken Bossong, executive director of the Sun Day Campaign. "And even the current 14.3% figure undoubtedly understates the real contribution from renewables inasmuch as EIA's data does not fully reflect distributed and off-grid generation."

One puzzling paragraph of Schroeder's report is that while generation from all renewable sources grew at 2.73% the generation from all sources grew by 2.59%. Why is this so close? Is this an error? Perhaps, one of our several experts in the U.S. electrical power industry can comment. We are going to need the proportion of renewable energy to rise a lot faster than total energy production relative to achieve our goals of capping and reducing global carbon emissions to prevent run-away global warming.

We are moving in the right direction, and we need to greatly accelerate our transition to sustainable energy production by supporting the Production Tax Credit for wind energy which is stalled in congress, and push back on the fossil fuel industry's push to roll back state level Renewable Portfolio Standards as just two of many next steps.

We don't have to be a rooster to know the sun is rising in American.

Woof, woof, ... oh wait ... , I mean "Cockadoodle Dooooo!"