The U.S. solar industry expects to add a record 32 gigawatts (GW) of production capacity this year, up 53% on new capacity in 2022 and helped by investment incentives under the Inflation Reduction Act, a report published on Thursday showed.
32 GW is a lot. The average thermal coal generating station in the US is 1GW and these stations have an average capacity of 50%. That means that this colar prodution capacity enables us to displace 64 coal stations during the daytime if consumption does not grow.
The future of renewable energy is very promising. It’s easy to miss how fast it can turn around when growth it grows so much year-to-year but starts at a small place. Keep this kind of growth up and the grid will be clean a lot faster than seems possible.
Beyond solar I’m also very hopeful about offshore wind efforts in the US.
I think geothermal is the next big thing because oil and gas companies don’t just get to invest in it—they already have the knowledge and tools to make it happen. We could actually see them turn from one fuel to another.
Plus, there are power storage solutions that involve drilling into bedrock.