Watch the history of biopower plants in the United States

Date Published: April 29, 2024

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The electricity that is generated from biomass is called biopower. In the United States, biomass comes from diverse sources: wood chips and pellets; residues and byproducts of harvesting and processing agricultural and forest products; black liquor, a byproduct of making wood pulp; urban wood waste; and gasses derived from animal manure and human sewage. In 2022 there were about 630 power plants in the United States using some form of biomass energy. Those plants had a nameplate capacity of 10,722 MW and they generated 52 billion kWh, or about 1.2% of total electricity in the country.¹

1 U.S. Energy Information Administration, “U.S. utility-scale electricity generation by source, amount, and share of total in 2022,” https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427

Bioenergy, Electricity, History, Power Plants, Renewable Energy, United States

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