Slow April for US renewables, gas brings 99% of new capacity

Solar panels in USA. Author: Pete Jelliffe. License: Creative Commons. Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic.

Just 23 MW of large-scale solar parks and zero megawatts of wind farms were put in service in the US in April, while natural gas plants accounted for 99% of the month's 2.7 GW of new capacity.

The first four months of the year saw the start up of 7 GW of new power capacity, including nearly 2 GW of wind, 1.5 GW of solar and 3.4 GW of natural gas, according to the latest report by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Details on new and cumulative capacity by source, as well as proposed additions and retirements by May 2021, can be seen in the table.

All in MW	4-mo 2018	4-mo 2017	Cumulative	Additions by May 2021	Retirements by May 2021
Wind	1,956	3,281	90,950	91,049	68
Solar	1,495	1,801	32,920	52,218	2
Biomass	3	110	16,520	706	50
Geothermal steam	19	18	3,850	1,115	0
Water	19	12	100,800	12,558	554
Natural gas	3,397	5,166	515,470	85,686	14,589
Nuclear	4	102	108,180	6,363	5,607
Coal	0	0	273,300	912	16,810
Oil	10	7	42,040	744	482
TOTAL	6,988	10,718	1,186,160	252,127	38,152