Next Big Future July 3, 2024
The National Energy Administration (NEA) reports China added 217GW of solar power and 76GW of wind power in 2023 – to reach a total capacity of 1,050GW. They need 15 Tesla Megapack factories (150,000 per year) worth of fixed storage every year for the additional wind and solar. This will increase as China accelerates solar and wind installation to meet AI data center demand. By May 2024, China had installed 690GW of solar capacity and 460GW of wind, which made up 38% of its power generation capacity. China is averaging about 1 MWh/year (2.8kWh/day) per kilowatt of installed solar. The US is getting 1.85 MWh/year (4.8 kWh/day) per kilowatt of installed solar. US nuclear power can get 8 MWh/year (22 kWh/day) per installed kilowatt. Other countries get 6-7 MWh/year per installed kilowatt of nuclear. Coal power can get about 4 MWh/year per kilowatt of installed power. Hydro can get about 3 MWh/year per kilowatt of installed power. There is also a lot of variability by country, locations and projects even for the same energy type… read more.