The biggest contributor to US coal and nuclear plant retirements has been the “advantaged economics” of natural gas-fired generation, not the 60% growth in wind and solar power generation capacity on the electric grid since 2000, a newly-released Department of Energy study found.
Significantly, the anticipated 187-page final draft Staff Report on Electricity Markets and Reliability does not find that variable renewable energy poses a risk to stability of the US electric grid.
