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In my travels throughout the nation, I’ve seen huge wind farms in Wyoming, South Dakota, and Iowa, in addition to big wind farms and photo voltaic farms in southern California. Nonetheless, residing in Utah for 20 years and touring north to south and east to west, the one grid-scale clear vitality manufacturing I’d seen till now’s from the small 9-turbine wind farm on the mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon proven within the 6th determine under.
Grid-Scale Photo voltaic Electrical energy Manufacturing
Lately, I finished by to see the Clover Creek Photo voltaic Farm, a 560-acre 80-megawatt industrial clear vitality electrical energy producing facility simply west of Mona, Utah, about 77 miles south of Salt Lake Metropolis. You’ll be able to see six images of this facility under. It’s simply off I-15, however far sufficient to drive by with out noticing.
With ample inexperienced vitality assets, Utah is simply starting to harness them. Utah has a desert local weather with over 300 sunny days per 12 months on common and really low annual rainfall. It’s also possible to see from the images under examples of the minimal vegetation that we see in a excessive proportion of Utah’s land space. Utah has nice photo voltaic assets and a excessive proportion of land within the state the place photo voltaic panels gained’t intervene with different use.
Utah additionally has an 80-megawatt farm close to Enterprise, Utah. As well as, there’s the 150-megawatt Pavant photo voltaic farm close to Filmore, Utah. The biggest photo voltaic farm within the state at current is the Escalante Photo voltaic Challenge (close to Milford) which has a capability of 315 megawatts. That makes the mixed manufacturing from Utah’s greatest farms to be 620 megawatts at current. Nonetheless, solar energy is about to extend dramatically with the development of a 400-megawatt plant as a part of the Inexperienced River Power Middle in east central Utah. There may be additionally a 1600 MWh battery facility to be constructed on the web site, making it one of many largest photo voltaic + storage amenities within the nation. The GREC is being constructed close to Utah’s largest coal-powered electrical producing amenities, Hunter and Huntington. This may give the brand new vitality middle entry to the transmission traces essential to make it profitable. The power is deliberate to come back on line in 2025.
Nonetheless, Utah additionally has bountiful coal assets, and the vast majority of Utah’s electrical energy traditionally has come from that coal. Utah even has a county named Carbon County. Extra lately, Utah has constructed a number of fossil gasoline energy crops on the closely populated Wasatch Entrance that produce much less carbon dioxide and minimal air pollution.
Grid-Scale Wind Electrical energy Manufacturing
If we’re restricted to 615 megawatts of enormous industrial photo voltaic farm manufacturing in Utah, we’re much more restricted in wind turbine electrical energy manufacturing. One wind farm is the very small 9-turbine farm with 19,000 kW whole capability on the base of Spanish Fork Canyon in Spanish Fork, Utah, that I referred to beforehand. I assume the almost fixed air present blowing up and down the canyon was the rational for the situation. The biggest capability wind farm in Utah is Milford Wind with 300 megawatts of capability from 165 generators simply north of Milford in Beaver County.
Rooftop Photo voltaic Electrical energy Manufacturing
Utah has had a two-prong system to encourage the set up of rooftop photo voltaic panels. First, there’s a 30% federal authorities subsidy for any new rooftop photo voltaic panel set up. Second, Rocky Mountain Energy has had a web metering system the place it pays dwelling house owners between 8 and 11 cents per kW for the surplus energy produced by their techniques. Most significantly, Rocky Mountain Energy has bought the surplus energy produced by an house owners’ panels in the course of the day and sells them electrical energy at common charges at night time. Which means that a house owner didn’t have to purchase an costly battery system to perform this operate.
Nonetheless, Rocky Mountain Energy is now not enrolling new installations on this program. This may massively discourage new rooftop photo voltaic within the state. As a result of now defunct system, Utah ranked within the prime 10 solar energy producers within the US with 71,815 houses with put in photo voltaic panels producing 478 megawatts.
Roughly 5% of all US houses have photo voltaic panels. For comparability, California rooftop photo voltaic manufacturing is 6480 megawatts. Utah’s manufacturing is ~7% of California’s. Since Utah’s inhabitants is 8.7% of the scale of California, Utah’s manufacturing determine is fairly spectacular.
Renewable Power Use
Electrical Car Penetration In Utah
Driving across the northern Utah metropolitan area, the southern Saint George area, and driving in between them, one sees quite a few Tesla Mannequin 3 and Mannequin Y autos in addition to the occasional Mannequin S, Mannequin X, and Cybertruck. One additionally often sees Rivian vans and SUVs. Extra sometimes, one sees Ford Mustang Mach E sedans and Ford F150 Lightning vans. See examples of Tesla, Rivian, and Ford electrical autos seen in northern Utah within the determine under. Nonetheless, in my expertise, it’s that Tesla Mannequin Y and Mannequin 3 EVs are by far essentially the most often seen electrical autos in Utah.
Batter-electric autos had been 8.3% of latest car gross sales in Utah in 2023. In 2023, there have been 40,000 gentle electrical autos registered in Utah. With 434,000 gentle inner combustion autos, the EV penetration of the Utah fleet was rather less than 1% in keeping with the US Division of Power. This doesn’t sound like a lot, however by comparability, California had solely 2.5 % penetration, despite the truth that EV new automobile gross sales in California are at ~25% of the market. Even when gross sales of latest electrical autos are excessive, it takes time to transform the fleet. One other extra constructive means to have a look at it’s that there are 1078 EVs per 10,000 Utah residents. For comparability, California, which has by far essentially the most EVs on the highway, solely has 3026 EVs per 10,000 residents. One cause the overall fleet numbers aren’t as unhealthy as they appear is that new automobiles get pushed way more than older automobiles. From my very own expertise that is notably true in the event you personal multiple car.
Electrification Of Public Transit In Utah
The Utah Transit Authority (UTA) is operating 42.5 miles of TRAX gentle commuter rail (avenue automobiles) and 80 miles miles of heavy rail commuter rail (FrontRunner). See images of the trains within the determine under.
UTA has additionally put 34 of New Flyer Inc. electrical buses in operation. Zion Nationwide Park in southern Utah has completely up to date its bus fleet with 30 electrical buses. 25 are 60-foot articulated buses and 5 are 40-foot buses, all from New Flyer Inc. See images of the Zion and UTA electrical buses within the determine under.
Electrification Of Business Car Fleets
Amazon Prime has completely electrified its supply van fleet in lots of components of Utah. See images of an Amazon Prime Rivian electrical supply van two years in the past throughout the road from my home in Lindon, Utah, within the determine under. These are a part of the 20,000 Rivian vans Amazon has already obtained as a part of a 100,000-van order.
Whereas Amazon is making nice progress electrifying its fleet, the opposite principal supply firms, UPS and FedEx, haven’t even begun electrification.
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