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by alex_stoddard 3344 days ago
Data on national scale, like the eia stuff you link to, is vital to understanding and debate.

What I realize I don't understand is the meaning of "Generation at Utility Scale Facilities" in the header of the table. What does this exclude and how meaningful is the exclusion?

According to the table, net generation at utility scale has decreased 10% over the last decade. How much of that is driven by non-utility scale generation versus decreased energy usage? (Alternatively non-utility scale generation has outpaced total growth in energy use - I'm ignorant of total consumption data so I don't know what is really going on).

Either way, the numbers do seem to suggest a case for new nuclear generation overall.

1 comments

Commercial and Residential solar are excluded. Those might add up to half a percent or so. The other 9.5% is probably due to energy efficiency.
Residential solar is hard to pin down because it's "behind the meter"; it doesn't look like generation, it looks like demand reduction.