The Western Electricity Coordinating Council grid spans most of 11 US states, the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Alberta, and a small section of Baja California, Mexico.
© Western Electricity Coordinating Council | 29.07.2013: More than 2.1 GW of utility-scale solar capacity is estimated to be operating on the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) grid, which spans most of 11 US states, the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Alberta, and a small section of Northern Baja California, Mexico. According to the WECC's 2012 State of the Interconnection report, the WECC grid has a 2013 summer expected maximum generation capacity of 233,083 MW. Just 2,124 MW – or 0.91% – is estimated to come from utility-scale PV and CSP plants. The majority of generation capacity on the WECC grid will instead come from gas (90,879 MW), hydropower (61,570 MW), coal (38,798 MW) and wind (19,753 MW). With 956 MW, Southern California has the most solar generation capacity of any of the 9 WECC regions. In this region, solar accounts for nearly 2.6% of total generation capacity. The Desert Southwest region, made up of Arizona, New Mexico and small sections of Nevada and Texas, comes in second with 520 MW of solar generation capacity, followed by Northern California with 503 MW. Neither of the Canadian provinces have any utility-scale solar, according to WECC, and the Mexican segment of the grid has just 5 MW. According to the report, actual peak summer demand for the WECC region in 2012 reached 150,913 MW. Winter peak demand reached 124,369 MW. © PHOTON |
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