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To fight climate change, the US needs renewable energy, and fast. Ironically, we already have it, the US has 947 GW of renewable generation capacity that is not
by vegetablepotpie 2y ago
To fight climate change, the US needs renewable energy, and fast. Ironically, we already have it, the US has 947 GW of renewable generation capacity that is not hooked up to the grid [1]. To put that number into perspective, the US currently has 1.16 TW of generation capacity in total [2]. We could nearly double our generation capacity today if we could just hook it up.
Unfortunately it takes 10 years to build new transmission lines in the US [3]. Changes are going to need to be made to the process, which may include giving more responsibility and agency to FERC to oversee the review process.
[1] https://emp.lbl.gov/utility-scale-solar https://emp.lbl.gov/utility-scale-solar
[2] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-in-the-us-generation-capacity-and-sales.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-...
[3] https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2022/10/permitting-americas-next-big-climate-conundrum/ https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2022/10/permitting-americ...
- StevenHarlow 2y agoNot all of that capacity in the interconnection queues are ready to flip the switch though, correct? Requests can be pre-construction, construction, built/non-operating, and operating [1] [1] https://www.enverus.com/blog/the-interconnection-queue-an-introduction/ https://www.enverus.com/blog/the-interconnection-queue-an-in...