Wind turbines at the F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming.
Wind energy has reached a new milestone in the United States, beating out both nuclear and coal generation for the first time to become the second-largest source of electricity generation for a single day, behind only natural gas.
According to figures published last week by the United States Energy Information Administration (EIA), wind turbines across the the “lower 48” of the United States (all states except Hawaii and Alaska), produced 2,017GWh of electricity on Tuesday, March 29.
And while this is a snapshot of only one day, it is nevertheless representative of a much larger trend in US electricity generation.
As can be seen from the graph above, the increasing share of wind energy generation has been mirrored by a continuing decline in both natural gas and coal generation, and even seen it jump above the relatively stable nuclear generation figures.
On an annual basis, however, wind and solar still have some way to travel to overtake the legacy fuels.
The long term trend is for a big decline in coal capacity and output, apart from a recent blip which slightly reversed the latest year’s share of coal and gas.
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