SUN DAY CAMPAIGN
US Renewable Electricity Grows 14.6% as Fossil Fuels & Nuclear Fall

For Release:  Thursday - October 26, 2017

According to the latest issue of the U.S. Energy Information Administration's ( EIA) "Electric Power Monthly" report (with data through August 31, 2017), U.S. electrical generation from renewable energy sources (i.e., biomass, geothermal, hydropower, solar - inc. distributed solar, wind) rose by 14.63% during the first two-thirds of 2017 compared to the same period in 2016. Simultaneously, fossil fuel generation fell by 6.67% and nuclear power declined by 2.08%.

Year-to-date, electrical generation by utility-scale solar (i.e., solar thermal and photovoltaic) plus small-scale solar photovoltaic rose by 41.4% and is now surpassing 2.0% of total electrical generation. Most other renewable energy sources also showed positive growth: electrical output from hydropower grew 16.4%, wind by 10.7%, and geothermal by 3.5%. Only biomass declined by 1.0%.

Overall, renewables accounted for 18.17% of domestic electrical generation during the first eight months of this year with nuclear providing 19.55%, and fossil fuels 62.11%; the balance (0.17%) is from pumped hydro and other sources.

EIA released its most recent "Electric Power Monthly" report on October 24, 2017.
The full report may be found at: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly .  
The most relevant data cited in this advisory may be found in, or is derived from, the following table: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_es1b

The SUN DAY Campaign is a non-profit research and educational organization founded in 1992 to aggressively promote sustainable energy technologies as cost-effective alternatives to nuclear power and fossil fuels.