While some in Washington continue to rally the sheep into believing renewable energy will never be more than a minuscule fraction of our overall power generation mix, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) recently reported that renewable sources generated 40.39 million megawatt-hours in May, 2009. That's 7.7 percent higher than in May of 2008.

Overall, 13 percent of U.S. net electrical generation in May, 2009 came from renewables. And compared to May, 2008, wind-powered generation increased by 12.5 percent (mostly due to the 11 new wind farms in Iowa that began generating electricity at the end of 2008) solar increased by 3.5 percent and conventional hydro increased by 10.2 percent. (Keep an eye on new run-of-river hydro projects, as these will become much more common in the very near future)

Now as renewable energy generation was increasing, coal-fired power fell 14.8 percent and petroleum liquids fell by 8.3 percent. Total electrical generation actually fell by 4.1 percent from May, 2008 to May, 2009.

As an interesting side note, this was the tenth consecutive month that total generation in the U.S. declined in comparison to the same calendar month in the prior year. So as total power generation has decreased, renewable power generation has increased. Can't wait to see where we are next year!

Jeff