Power Perspectives

Monday 3 April 2023

US electricity generation broke out of a twenty year range last year, and reached a new all-time high. Since the year 2000, annual US power generation has roughly oscillated between 3800 and 4100 terawatt hours (TWh). Last year, output reached over 4300 TWh; an upside spike that likely heralds a new growth phase in US power. As we know, the project of decarbonization largely involves moving tranches and tranches of energy demand over to powergrids which are concurrently transitioning to clean sources. The US is in the early phases of this transformation. Wind and solar now compose nearly 15% of total electricity output, and layer by layer, everything from transportation to heating will be electrified. As the American fleet of EV, heat pumps, and electrified buildings rolls out, total power demand will of course rise further. There is no question the US will eventually consume 5000 TWh of power (and likely more) and the bulk of that new generation will come from wind, solar, and batteries—the energy triumvirate of better, faster, cheaper.

To illustrate, let’s use a chart that does double-duty, showing both total power generation and the share taken by wind+solar. The bold numbers on the far right indicate total power generation. Last year the US generated 4302 TWh in total, but note the steady creep of the orange bars—those represent combined wind+solar. | for the interactive version of the chart that displays all numbers when you hover, click directly on the chart below which will take you to Datawrapper where the chart is hosted.

Just a word of caution, however. As The Gregor Letter has laid out over recent issues, the advent of more rapid growth in US electricity demand is yet another warning to curb the ascent of natural gas. Without both new nuclear on the supply side, and more efficient buildings and heating on the demand side, combined wind+solar+batteries will not, by themselves, be able to cover all the growth that is certain to come in US power. Put another way, even if combined wind+solar+batteries were able to cover all marginal growth in US power, without new nuclear or very significant demand side changes, fossil fuel emissions from the power sector will not decline.

The trajectory of US emissions is no longer encouraging. For ten years, from the highs of 2007 through 2017, US CO₂ emissions from energy combustion fell from 6016 to 5131 million tonnes. This was a robust period for the first wave of wind and solar growth, combined with rapid retirements of coal-fired power, and importantly, during a time when total US electricity demand was not growing. Notice however that after 2017, even as wind and solar continued to grow and coal continued to die, the path of US emissions changed, and stopped declining as much. 2022, which was still a year of economic recovery, saw emissions rise again to nearly 5000 tonnes, barely below the highs of 2018 and 2019.