US Electricity from Renewable Energy Beat Electricity from Coal or Nuclear in 2022 - CleanTechnica
US Electricity from Renewable Energy Beat Electricity from Coal or Nuclear in 2022 - CleanTechnica
Since 2007, the use of coal for electricity generation has generally been in decline, while the use of renewables has been on the rise. Electricity generation from nuclear had remained relatively flat over the last two decades but has experienced a slight decline in recent years. In 2022, net generation of electricity from renewables reached 0.91 billion megawatt-hours, topping both coal and nuclear (0.83 and 0.77 billion megawatt-hours, respectively). In 2022, renewables accounted for about 21% of all net generation of electricity.
Net generation of electricity from renewable sources exceeded coal and nuclear in 2022.
- Renewable sources of power include wind, solar, hydropower, biomass, and geothermal energy. “Other” category includes petroleum liquids, petroleum coke, batteries, chemicals, hydrogen, pitch, purchased steam, sulfur, miscellaneous technologies, and non-renewable waste.
- Electricity net generation is the amount of gross electricity generation a generator produces minus the electricity used to operate the power plant.
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Electricity Data Browser, queried April 21, 2023.
View the supporting data for this Fact of the Week.
Courtesy of U.S. DOE Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy.
View all Transportation Facts of the Week.
Sign up for
daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or
follow us on Google News!
Have a tip for CleanTechnica, want to advertise, or want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast?
Contact us here.
Former Tesla Battery Expert Leading Lyten Into New Lithium-Sulfur Battery Era — Podcast:
I don't like paywalls. You don't like paywalls. Who likes paywalls? Here at CleanTechnica, we implemented a limited paywall for a while, but it always felt wrong — and it was always tough to decide what we should put behind there. In theory, your most exclusive and best content goes behind a paywall. But then fewer people read it! We just don't like paywalls, and so we've decided to ditch ours. Unfortunately, the media business is still a tough, cut-throat business with tiny margins. It's a never-ending Olympic challenge to stay above water or even perhaps — gasp — grow. So ...
Related Knowledge Center: ENERGY BASICS: renewables
Renewable energy sources — once the fuel of the future, then practical in specific, narrow applications — are increasingly economic mainstream sources of power generation. Hydropower was long the mainstay of U.S. renewable electricity generation, although wind power surpassed hydro for the first time in 2019, and solar continues its rapid growth. The continued growth of wind and solar, with their fluctuations, is tied in part to improvements in storage technology: batteries.