Solar Power Was #2 Electricity Source in USA for 5 Hours Last Week!

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We received a note from a reader, Daniel Miller, yesterday. He noted, “March 21st was the first time in US that Solar was the 2nd highest electric production on an hourly basis. Happened again on 22nd.”

That’s quite a huge accomplishment. I haven’t seen it covered elsewhere, so a huge thanks to Daniel for noticing and sharing. He also to a U.S. Energy Information Administration page which shows US electricity generation by source on an hourly basis. You can see the static graph below, but you have to go to that EIA webpage to see an interactive version where you can hover over each hour and compare numbers.

On March 21, at 2:00pm ET, it shows that solar power rose above wind power and nuclear power to become the #2 source of electricity in the nation. It remained in that #2 spot until 6:00pm ET.

The next day, March 22, solar power again rose to the #2 position at 2:00pm ET. However, this time it didn’t hold onto that spot in remaining hours. Just wait a few days, or weeks, though. Looking at that graph, you can see that solar power now rises up near the level of nuclear power and wind power every day in the midday hours. Coal is up near that territory as well.

Fossil gas (aka natural gas) is far above all of them, but you’ll notice that it drops a lot in midday hours as solar rises. So, expect them to get closer to each other in those hours rather rapidly. Actually, if you look at March 21 again, you can see that natural gas dips so much as solar rises that they aren’t actually that far apart.

Stay tuned. I think this graph is going to show us some interesting milestones in the months to come.