Information about Clean, Renewable Energy.

Supply and Demand

NREL published an interesting paper this month exploring the dynamics of renewable energy supply and demand. The conclusion of the report was demand, driven by fiat (renewable portfolio standard) and choice (voluntary renewable power supply) were likely to exceed supply by as much as 8,000,000 MWh by 2010.

Chart of Supply vs. Demand for Renewables
Chart of Supply vs. Demand for Renewable Electricity in the US


One other item of note, in the table below, you can see the impact of capacity factor. Note the nameplate installed MW of wind vs. the output of MWh. Then compare that to geothermal, you’ll see that significantly less nameplate capacity of geothermal leads to a disproportionate output of MWh. This is due to capacity factor.

Table of Renewable Electricity Generation Sources 2004
Table of Renewable Electricity Generation sources in 2004

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