EIA headline is "Renewable generation surpassed coal and nuclear in the U.S. electric power sector in 2022" but natural gas is the largest generator of electricity

Natural gas also provides the backup generation that balances unreliable wind and solar

The Energy Information Agency (EIA) reported this on March 27, 2023. Of course, this became headline news, all cleverly written to promote the falsehood that renewables are rapidly replacing fossil fuels. An example was the Houston Chronicle article: “Renewables outpace coal for electric generation in the US:.”

“Doug Lewin, a clean energy advocate and president of power consultant Stoic Energy, said “the last couple of years have laid the groundwork for renewables to overtake coal. It doesn't surprise me based on recent events,” Lewin said of the report. “But you if you had asked me 10 years ago – maybe even seven or eight years ago – if that would have been possible? Maybe it was possible, but highly improbable. It’s been a really meteoric rise for renewables.”

What is not being reported is that wind and solar were able to “surpass coal and nuclear” because they get a free ride from natural gas-fired electricity generators, which provide backup power when the wind isn’t blowing, and the sun isn’t shining. 

Here is a real-life example. On Wednesday, March 29, 2023, winds were moderate, and the sky was overcast. The ERCOT Grid and Market Conditions real-time dashboard showed that wind power produced 22% of the total electricity being generated at 10:24 AM, while solar produced 13.4%. Natural gas-powered generation produced 45.6% of the total electricity being generated.

The next day, March 30, the overcast conditions continued, and solar generation declined to 6.1% of total generation. Then, at 2:15 PM, the wind picked up and produced 52% of the total generation, and natural gas generation was reduced to 25%.

That is a significant variation during a 24-hour period. Wind power more than doubled from one day to the next, and solar power dropped by over 50%. This is not unusual for the Texas grid. After all, wind and solar depend on the weather, so grid operators must make significant changes hourly and daily to maintain the delicate balance between supply and demand.

In Texas, such balancing acts are possible because Texas is the largest U.S. natural gas producer. As a result, significant natural gas electricity generation is available to fill in as needed. It is important to emphasize that natural gas generators do this on the ERCOT grid in Texas without being paid to be available. If natural gas generators are not generating electricity, they are not being paid because Texas is an “electricity only” market. Therefore, there are no payments for standby capacity.

The importance of natural gas power generation also applies to other U.S. power grids as well. For example, NV Energy in Nevada recently received regulatory permission to build a $350 million natural gas backup generation plant. But in some parts of the country, such as the ISO New England grid, natural gas pipeline capacity has been limited by anti-natural gas NGOs, so natural gas generation is backed up by fuel oil in freezing weather.

Natural gas generation is the main “battery” to balance grids when the wind isn’t blowing, and the sun isn’t shining. Without natural gas generation being the swing generator, wind and solar would be out of luck. However, since affordable grid-scale battery backup does not exist, natural gas will continue backing up unreliable wind and solar.

This point was emphasized recently on Robert Bryce’s Power Hungry Podcast by Bryce’s guest, B.F. Randall, an environmental and natural resources lawyer. Randall said that the continued reliance on natural gas and other fossil fuels as backups for wind and solar guarantees that “wind and solar perpetuate fossil fuels forever.” Randall’s observation is spot on because weather-dependent wind and solar cannot provide reliable power by themselves, and affordable grid-scale battery backup does not exist. Therefore, wind and solar can only continue being deployed if fossil fuels back them up.

With the massive subsidies starting to be disbursed after the passage of the comically misnamed “Inflation Reduction Act,” significantly more wind and solar generation will be installed in the U.S., which will disrupt power grids even more than they are currently. Fortunately, natural gas will continue to stabilize the nation’s power grids.