A recent release from Climate Central’s “WeatherPower Year in Review: 2022” reports that electricity generated from solar and wind grew 16% from 2021, with wind accounting for roughly 74% of that growth. The report also states the 683,130 gigawatt-hours generated across the country from renewable power generation resources were enough to power 64 million average American households.
According to 2022 figures from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, about 4,243 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity were generated at utility-scale electricity generation facilities in the United States. About 60% of this electricity generation was from fossil fuels: coal, natural gas, petroleum and other gases. About 18% was from nuclear energy, and about 22% was from renewable energy sources — from those renewable sources, wind provided just over 10% of U.S. electricity.
Climate Central reported that Colorado, at 5,177 megawatts, ranked seventh in the nation for wind capacity and had 1,774 MW of solar capacity. In comparison, Texas ranked first with 37,365 MW of wind capacity and California ranked first with the solar capacity of 28,493 MW. It’s good to remember that capacity, measured in MW, is the measure of the maximum output of an electric generation plant under ideal conditions, such as strong winds or full sun. Generation, measured in megawatt-hours, is how much electricity is actually produced.