Nearly seven gigawatts of new power generation capacity came online in the second quarter of 2021. Renewable energy generation capacity growth was comparable to last quarter, while new fossil gas construction dropped dramatically. In four of the last eight quarters, the fossil gas contribution to new power generation capacity has been less than 10 percent. It has been two years since fossil fuel plants made up the majority of quarterly added generation capacity.
In the chart below, we illustrate the past two years of new power plant capacity in the U.S., disaggregated by energy source on a quarterly basis.
