Coal Moves Ahead of Natural Gas as Top Fuel for 57 Gigawatts of Power Generation Units Under Construction in North America

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Everybody wants to be green these days, and that's not solely because St. Patrick's Day is tomorrow. While green energy sources like wind, hydro, solar and biofuels attract a growing share of planned new power generation unit development, coal and natural gas remain the go-to fuel types for new base-load and intermediate-load power generation units under construction in North America. There are more than 57 gigawatts (GW) of new power generation units currently under construction in North America.

Click on the image at right to view a chart showing the breakdown of power generation units under construction in North America based on fuel type.

Based on capacity, either coal or natural gas is being utilized as a fuel by 61% of new power generation units currently under construction in North America. Coal-fired units account for 18 GW under construction, and natural-gas-fired units account for 17 GW under construction. An additional 7,256 megawatts (MW) of waste-heat-fired units are under construction, mainly as part of natural-gas-fired combined-cycle projects.

Renewables make up about 15% of the new capacity under construction with about 9,000 MW, mostly from wind, hydroelectric and geothermal sources.

The 57 gigawatts under construction encompasses 393 new units and windfarms being constructed at 128 grassroot sites and 78 existing power plant sites.

As far as output usage is concerned, 94 units totaling more than 25 GW are designed for base-load power, 199 units totaling more than 26 GW are designed for intermediate-load power, and 100 units totaling 4.9 GW will be used for peaking power.

About 27 GW, or 47% of this capacity, is scheduled to begin operation within the next 12 months. An additional 10.6 GW, or 19% of capacity, is scheduled to begin operation between 13 and 24 months from now. The remaining 34% will come online after two years.

All data in this report can be obtained from Industrial Info's Power Tracker. For specific unit and plant details, contact Industrial Info's Member Center at 1-800-762-3361.

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is a marketing information service specializing in industrial process, energy and financial related markets with products and services ranging from industry news, analytics, forecasting, plant and project databases, as well as multimedia services.