Paul Cantrell
I appreciate news orgs doing this sort of “here’s the big picture” reporting:
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/14032024/inside-clean-energy-coal-power-decline/
This isn’t breaking news. This is seeing the forest instead of running through the woods and smacking into one tree at a time.
Paul Cantrell
@Dseitz
My understanding is that residential solar is still <20% of total solar, which means it does not make much of a dent in that graph. If the numbers are “off,” they’re not off by much.
The article does specifically mention that the renewables curve is likely to bend in a favorable direction as cost structure shifts.
Dan Seitz
Renewables number is off though. If you're looking at utility scale projects you're not factoring in residential solar in particular. Of course nobody wants to talk about the shitshow when solar costs drop enough and energy efficiency rises enough that solar panels are everywhere, but that's coming. Probably 2030 at the latest tbh.
Paul Cantrell
@Dseitz
Yeah, here we go:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1419815/solar-energy-capacity-by-sector-united-states/
Residential solar capacity (note that capacity ≠ production) just recent crept up to 21% of total US solar capacity.
That’s just solar, which is ~20% of all electricity. So if that graph included residential solar, the renewables line would be 21% of 20% = ~4% higher, which really doesn’t change the big picture it paints.
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