{"id":13820,"date":"2020-07-29T00:30:34","date_gmt":"2020-07-29T06:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=13820"},"modified":"2020-07-29T00:30:34","modified_gmt":"2020-07-29T06:30:34","slug":"let-renewables-pick-up-more-of-the-load","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2020\/07\/29\/let-renewables-pick-up-more-of-the-load\/","title":{"rendered":"Let Renewables Pick Up More Of The Load!"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Kiki Tidwell<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"It wasn\u2019t too long ago that critics said that renewable energy couldn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn April, almost 40% of the electricity supply was made up of power generated at area wind farms\u201d in New Mexico and Texas, Xcel Energy reported. \u201cArea wind plants not only have helped us meet high demand on hot days, but they\u2019re saving customers money because we don\u2019t have to purchase fuel to operate the turbines\u2014we simply take the energy from the region\u2019s abundant supply of wind,\u201d says Xcel\u2019s president.1<\/sup>\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cOn April 12, wind energy set a daily record when it accounted for more than 64% of that day\u2019s electricity supply.\u201d 2<\/sup><\/p>\n

\u201cRenewable 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\u201d 3<\/sup><\/p>\n

Berkshire Hathaway\u2019s PacifiCorp provides Eastern Idaho\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\"\"
MAY 28, 2020. U.S. renewable energy consumption surpasses coal for the first time in over 130 years<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Idaho has great naturally occurring wind. In contrast, Idaho Power\u2019s 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).<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

(Here\u2019s 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<\/a> \u00a0 <\/span>see the big orange circles of coal plants -located far from us!)<\/p>\n

1<\/sup> https:\/\/www.yourstephenvilletx.com\/business\/20200710\/wind-energy-hits-record-high-marks-this-spring<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

2<\/sup>\u00a0 <\/span>Ibid https:\/\/www.nwcouncil.org\/energy\/energy-topics\/power-supply\/map-of-power-generation-in-the-northwest<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

3<\/sup> https:\/\/www.energylivenews.com\/2020\/07\/14\/renewables-smash-new-record-providing-40-of-european-electricity\/<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

4<\/sup> https:\/\/www.eia.gov\/todayinenergy\/detail.php?id=43895<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Kiki Tidwell It wasn\u2019t too long ago that critics said that renewable energy couldn\u2019t 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[71,38],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13820","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-coffee-chats-with-kiki","7":"category-sponsored"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13820\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}