Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

matt7810 t1_j7l65p2 wrote

Reply to comment by ahz0001 in US to add 29.1 GW of large-scale solar in 2023 by doboskombaya

The US has about 1143GW of total generating capacity and about 4.12 trillion kWh of net generation per year. Each GW of solar energy capacity produces about 1.753×10^9 kWh of electricity per year based on an average capacity factor of 20%.

My personal guess is that coal production will continue to fall while natural gas generation will stay approximately the same because of the demand in 5, 15 minute markets but increasing prices leading to less new projects.

13

somdude04 t1_j7lu09s wrote

So roughly 1.25% of annual generation will be this new large-scale solar.

3

matt7810 t1_j7m36q1 wrote

Looks like that is approximately correct. Some of that production may be lost to plant activities (to line up with "net generation" definition), so this % may be a bit high, but it is in the ballpark.

2