In US Midwest, Most Utilities Required To Meet Renewable Portfolio Standards On Track Or Nearly So

[NNadir]

2. I guess we're saved then. On the other hand, it's pretty damned hot out there.

4,300 "megawatts" of a solar power plant that is available 10% of the time is the equivalent of a very small gas plant, a 430 MW plant operating at 100% capacity utilization.

4300 "megawatts" of a wind plant operating 30% of the time is the equivalent of a 1,300 MW power plant, an average sized power plant operating at 100"% capacity utilization.

According to the EIA, in 2017, US energy consumption was 103.7 exajoules. Dividing this number by the number of seconds in a year, we find that US average continuous power consumption was 3.27 trillion watts, or just under 3,270,000 MW.

This suggests that the "renewable energy portfolio" (at best, if it's all wind) amounts to 0.04% of US average power demand, and of course, this does count the energy cost of firing up a gas plant when the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing.

I'm impressed.

We should declare victory and forget about how damned hot it is this week all over this planet.