HOUSTON, Jan. 10 (Xinhua) -- Such clean energy as renewables and natural gas will be used as main sources to increase U.S. power generating capacity in 2019, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Thursday.
According to EIA's latest report on inventory of electric generators, U.S. electric power sector is expected to have 23.7 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity additions and 8.3 GW of capacity retirements in 2019. The utility-scale capacity additions consist of 46 percent wind, 34 percent natural gas and 18 percent solar photovoltaics, with the remaining 2 percent of other renewables and battery storage capacity.
EIA said a total of 10.9 GW of wind capacity is currently scheduled to come online in 2019. Most of the capacity will not come online until the end of the year. The U.S. states of Texas, Iowa and Illinois will be home to more than half of the 2019 planned wind capacity additions.
Planned natural gas capacity additions are primarily in the form of combined-cycle plants and combustion-turbine plants. Most of the natural gas capacity is scheduled to be online by June 2019 in preparation for high summer demand. Of the planned natural gas capacity additions, 60 percent will occur in Pennsylvania, Florida, and Louisiana.
Nearly half of the 4.3 GW of utility-scale electric power sector solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity additions are located in Texas, California and North Carolina. EIA expects an additional 3.9 GW of small-scale solar PV capacity to enter service by the end of 2019.
