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Renewable Energy Consumption and Electricity Preliminary 2007 Statistics |
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The Role of Renewable Energy Consumption in the Nation’s Energy Supply, 2007 Source: Energy Information Administration, Office of Coal, Nuclear, Electric and Alternate Fuels Chart data. (entire report also available in printer-friendly format) 0.4MB |
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Electricity generation from renewable sources fell 9 percent in 2007 to 351 billion kilowatthours (kWh), largely due to reduced precipitation (Table 3). Excluding hydro electricity, however, renewable electricity generation grew 7 percent. This gain was led by a 21 percent increase in electricity from wind and moderate increases in electricity from biomass waste. There has been little change in generation from the largest non-hydro renewable electricity source, wood and derived fuels, since 2003. With the exception of hydro, changes in renewable electricity capacity generally reflected generation changes in 2007 (Table 4). Total renewable electricity capacity rose 5 percent to 107 thousand megawatts (MW), led by a 38 percent (or 4,000 MW) increase in wind capacity. Total nonrenewable electric capacity rose just 1 percent to 892 thousand megawatts. The state distribution of renewable electricity generation changed somewhat between 2006 and 2007 (Table 5 and Table 6). Washington state widened its lead over California as the leading renewable electricity producer, largely due to the fact that precipitation decreases were much less in the Pacific Northwest than in California. Furthermore, Washington commissioned more new wind capacity (344 MW) than did California (63 MW) in 2007 (Table 7 and Table 8). The result was that Washington’s wind-based generation increased by over 1 billion kWh in 2007, compared with about a 760 million kWh increase in California. Texas continued its drive to build wind capacity in 2007, commissioning nearly 1,300 MW and increasing wind-based generation by 22 percent to over 8 billion kWh. Texas now derives 2 percent of its total generation from wind energy.[3] Minnesota and Iowa each raised wind generation by roughly 400 million kWh. State-based generation from wood and derived fuels, the largest non-hydro renewable energy source, changed little between 2006 and 2007. The two major exceptions were New Hampshire and Washington. Wood and derived fuels-based generation increased from about 590 million kWh to 883 million kWh in New Hampshire, while dropping from 1,275 million kWh to 978 million kWh in Washington. Nevada generated from central station solar power for the first time in 2007 with the opening of the 64 MW Nevada Solar One plant in Boulder City.
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Endnotes: [1] See Table 2 of this report and Energy Information Administration, Renewable Energy Annual 2006 Data Tables (Washington, DC, April 2008), Tables 1.5a and 1.5b, here: http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/rea_data/rea_sum.html. [2] Ibid. [3] See Table 6 of this report and Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Monthly March 2008 (Washington, DC, March 2008), table 1.6.B here: http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/ftproot/electricity/epm/02260803.pdf |
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