Renewable Energy Production & Use In Utah

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In my travels throughout the nation, I’ve seen large wind farms in Wyoming, South Dakota, and Iowa, in addition to big wind farms and photo voltaic farms in southern California. Nonetheless, dwelling in Utah for 20 years and touring north to south and east to west, the one grid-scale clear power manufacturing I’d seen till now’s from the small 9-turbine wind farm on the mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon proven within the 6^th determine beneath.

Grid-Scale Photo voltaic Electrical energy Manufacturing

Just lately, I finished by to see the Clover Creek Photo voltaic Farm, a 560-acre 80-megawatt industrial clear power electrical energy producing facility simply west of Mona, Utah, about 77 miles south of Salt Lake Metropolis. You possibly can see six pictures of this facility beneath. It’s simply off I-15, however far sufficient to drive by with out noticing.

With ample inexperienced power sources, Utah is simply starting to harness them. Utah has a desert local weather with over 300 sunny days per yr on common and really low annual rainfall. You may also see from the pictures beneath examples of the minimal vegetation that we see in a excessive share of Utah’s land space. Utah has nice photo voltaic sources and a excessive share 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 largest 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 Vitality Middle in east central Utah. There may be additionally a 1600 MWh battery facility to be constructed on the website, making it one of many largest photo voltaic + storage services within the nation. The GREC is being constructed close to Utah’s largest coal-powered electrical producing services, Hunter and Huntington. It will give the brand new power heart entry to the transmission strains essential to make it profitable. The ability is deliberate to come back on line in 2025.

Nonetheless, Utah additionally has bountiful coal sources, and nearly all 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 fuel energy vegetation 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 practically fixed air present blowing up and down the canyon was the rational for the placement. 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 internet metering system the place it pays house house owners between 8 and 11 cents per kW for the surplus energy produced by their methods. Most significantly, Rocky Mountain Energy has bought the surplus energy produced by an house owners’ panels through the day and sells them electrical energy at common charges at evening. Because of this a home-owner didn’t have to purchase an costly battery system to perform this operate.

Nonetheless, Rocky Mountain Energy is not enrolling new installations on this program. It will 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 properties with put in photo voltaic panels producing 478 megawatts.

Roughly 5% of all US properties 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 dimensions of California, Utah’s manufacturing determine is fairly spectacular.

Renewable Vitality Use

Electrical Automobile 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 automobiles in addition to the occasional Mannequin S, Mannequin X, and Cybertruck. One additionally ceaselessly sees Rivian vehicles and SUVs. Extra sometimes, one sees Ford Mustang Mach E sedans and Ford F150 Lightning vehicles. See examples of Tesla, Rivian, and Ford electrical automobiles seen in northern Utah within the determine beneath. Nonetheless, in my expertise, it’s that Tesla Mannequin Y and Mannequin 3 EVs are by far probably the most ceaselessly seen electrical automobiles in Utah.

Batter-electric automobiles have been 8.3% of recent automobile gross sales in Utah in 2023. In 2023, there have been 40,000 mild electrical automobiles registered in Utah. With 434,000 mild inside combustion automobiles, the EV penetration of the Utah fleet was rather less than 1% in line with the US Division of Vitality. This doesn’t sound like a lot, however by comparability, California had solely 2.5 % penetration, regardless of the truth that EV new automotive gross sales in California are at ~25% of the market. Even when gross sales of recent electrical automobiles are excessive, it takes time to transform the fleet. One other extra constructive approach to have a look at it’s that there are 1078 EVs per 10,000 Utah residents. For comparability, California, which has by far probably the most EVs on the highway, solely has 3026 EVs per 10,000 residents. One motive the whole fleet numbers aren’t as unhealthy as they appear is that new vehicles get pushed far more than older vehicles. From my very own expertise that is notably true in case you personal multiple automobile.

Electrification Of Public Transit In Utah

The Utah Transit Authority (UTA) is operating 42.5 miles of TRAX mild commuter rail (avenue vehicles) and 80 miles miles of heavy rail commuter rail (FrontRunner). See pictures of the trains within the determine beneath.

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 pictures of the Zion and UTA electrical buses within the determine beneath.

Electrification Of Business Automobile Fleets

Amazon Prime has completely electrified its supply van fleet in lots of elements of Utah. See pictures 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 beneath. These are a part of the 20,000 Rivian vans Amazon has already acquired as a part of a 100,000-van order.

Whereas Amazon is making nice progress electrifying its fleet, the opposite principal supply corporations, UPS and FedEx, haven’t even begun electrification.

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