How much of our electricity comes from solar? Rounded to nearest percent, that would be zero.
I’ve seen comments that rounded to the nearest whole percent, solar power provides 0% of our electricity.
Finally found a way to test that data.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration has an Short-Term Energy Outlook report which has a data tab.
Figure 25 shows the sources of electricity generation. In thousands of megawatt hours (that would be gigawatt hours) for 2014 and 2015:
- 2014 2015 source
- 770 813 all renewables
- 11,214 11,309 total (gWh)
- 6.9% 7.2% renewables as percent of total
Figure 26 shows a breakout of renewable energy sources by type. In quadrillion BTUs, here is the actual and projected data:
- 2014 2015 source
- 1.729 1.807 wind (quadrillion btu)
- 0.427 0.524 solar
- 19.4% 20.5% portion of renewable from wind
- 4.8% 5.9% portion of renewable from solar
So that means that in 2014, wind farms generated 19.4% of the amount from renewables, which renewables in turn generated 6.9% of the total electricity.
Multiply 19.4% times 6.9% and we find 1.33% of electricity comes from slice-and-dicers.
For solar power, multiply the 4.8% of renewables from solar by the 6.9% of total electricity from renewables and we find that 0.33% of electricity comes from wing-toasters.
Thus, rounded to the nearest percentage point, in 2014 we got 1% of electricity from wind and 0% from solar.
Projected for 2015 is 1.48% from wind and 0.42% from solar, so again rounded to 1% and 0%.
Did I miss something in my math or logic?
(Hat tip to Million Dollar Way.)
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