The Energy Department reported that residential solar generated 981 thousand megawatt-hours of electricity in September. Let's see what was its share of total electric generation, nationally and in key states.
We add together utility scale and distributed generation from all sectors including the residential, commercial and industrial sectors. Total generation in September was 353,484 thousand megawatt-hours.
So, nationally, residential solar's share of total generation was 0.3 percent.
California and five other states dominated residential solar generation. California accounted for nearly half of this output, 49.2 percent. The five states (Arizona, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Hawaii) combined accounted for over a quarter of the output, 27.3 percent. The remaining forty-four states and D.C. combined had less than a quarter of the output, 23.5 percent.
In California, residential solar's share of total generation was 2.6 percent. In the five states, the overall share was 0.8 percent, but as high as 4.7 percent in Hawaii.
However, residential solar's share of total generation in the remaining forty-four states and D.C. was 0.1 percent.
Suppose you leave out Maryland, Colorado, Nevada and Connecticut. Then residential solar's share in the other forty states and D.C. was virtually nil.
Number-crunching - balanced and fact-based - courtesy of Public Utilities Fortnightly.
