this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2023
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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.

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[–] HidingCat@kbin.social 11 points 2 years ago (2 children)

What's the total power consumption of the USA? Just want to know how much this makes up.

For those who're more familiar with solar, will there be an issue with solar panel farms taking up land (which may cause environmental issues)? Wonder if there's a balance to be struck there.

[–] jennwiththesea@lemmy.world 13 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] HidingCat@kbin.social 12 points 2 years ago (1 children)

So not quite 1% even. Progress is progress, I guess.

What is scary is that barely 1% represents a hella lot of coal plants.

[–] eltimablo@kbin.social 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Actually, it looks like renewables have overtaken coal, with the majority of fossil fuel energy being provided by natural gas plants. I'm personally fine with newer LNG plants, since they (1) are actually quite clean, and (2) burn a byproduct that we get from making gasoline.

Source: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3

[–] Pretzilla@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago

Re: land use, see: agrivoltaics - dual, symbiotic use for solar + agriculture. They work very well together.