By Kiki Tidwell
It wasn’t too long ago that critics said that renewable energy couldn’t contribute more than a token percentage of the total energy supply. But look at what is happening all over the globe; not only is it supplying record amounts of the energy load, in the U.S. it is now supplying more than coal generation is.
“In April, almost 40% of the electricity supply was made up of power generated at area wind farms” in New Mexico and Texas, Xcel Energy reported. “Area wind plants not only have helped us meet high demand on hot days, but they’re saving customers money because we don’t have to purchase fuel to operate the turbines—we simply take the energy from the region’s abundant supply of wind,” says Xcel’s president.1 “On April 12, wind energy set a daily record when it accounted for more than 64% of that day’s electricity supply.” 2
“Renewable energy broke another record for the European electricity mix in the first quarter of 2020, reaching a 40% share, the highest quarterly figure on record. At the same time, the electricity generated by fossil fuels fell from 38% in the first quarter of 2019 to 33% during the same period this year” 3
Berkshire Hathaway’s PacifiCorp provides Eastern Idaho’s power as well as power to parts of five other states. It apparently understands that renewables are now able to supply a good portion of the generation load; PacifiCorp made news in early July when it opened up bidding for 4.3 more gigawatts of solar, wind and battery storage projects to be operational by 2024. 1 gigawatt = 1000 megawatts.
Idaho has great naturally occurring wind. In contrast, Idaho Power’s preferred plan is to only add 300 more megawatts of wind energy in 2038 at the earliest and the next 40 megawatts of solar in 2029 (beyond its current Jackpot solar plant coming online in 2022).
Traditionally, a lot of our energy was generated a long ways away from us from coal plants in the middle of Nevada, Wyoming and Oregon. We can follow these examples in other states and countries by allowing renewables to generate a greater share of the electricity generation mix in Idaho right now.
(Here’s a very cool site to see all the power generation in the Northwest: https://www.nwcouncil.org/energy/energy-topics/power-supply/map-of-power-generation-in-the-northwest see the big orange circles of coal plants -located far from us!)
1 https://www.yourstephenvilletx.com/business/20200710/wind-energy-hits-record-high-marks-this-spring
2 Ibid https://www.nwcouncil.org/energy/energy-topics/power-supply/map-of-power-generation-in-the-northwest