{"id":28524,"date":"2017-12-03T10:19:19","date_gmt":"2017-12-03T15:19:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=28524"},"modified":"2017-12-03T10:19:19","modified_gmt":"2017-12-03T15:19:19","slug":"us-demand-for-electricity-falls-further-what-does-it-mean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=28524","title":{"rendered":"US Demand for Electricity Falls Further: What Does it Mean?"},"content":{"rendered":"<header>\n<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wolfstreet.com\/2017\/12\/03\/us-demand-for-electricity-falls-further-what-does-it-mean\/\">US Demand for Electricity Falls Further: What Does it Mean?<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p><strong>Layoffs at GE Power, for example.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The weekend started Friday night with layoff news from GE\u2019s power division, in two locations.<\/p>\n<p>First, there was Greenville County, South Carolina, where GE Power is one of the largest employers with 3,400 workers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBased on the current challenges in the power industry and a significant decline in orders, GE Power continues to transform our new, combined business to better meet the needs of our customers,\u201d GE\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.greenvilleonline.com\/story\/money\/2017\/12\/01\/ge-layoffs-greenville-sc\/914405001\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">statement<\/a> said in flawless corporate speak: \u201cAs we have said, we are working to reduce costs and simplify our structure to better align our product solutions, and these steps will include layoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>GE Power has not disclosed the number of workers that are part of this layoff. The facilities make large gas turbines and turbine generator sets used by power plants. The plant also makes wind turbines.<\/p>\n<p>Then there was GE Power\u2019s facility in Schenectady, New York, which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-ge-layoffs\/general-electric-lays-off-workers-at-power-business-in-new-york-idUSKBN1DV63E\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">announced<\/a> the layoff of an undisclosed number of employees, blaming \u201ca significant decline in orders.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>GE Power has a problem: Electricity consumption in the US peaked in 2007 and has declined since, despite population growth of about 24 million people over the 10 years and despite economic growth.<\/p>\n<p>The chart below, based on data from the Department of Energy\u2019s EIA, shows annual electricity generation from 2001 through 2016. Note the growth in generation through 2007, the plunge during the Financial Crisis, the recovery, and the uneven decline since:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-37259\" src=\"https:\/\/wolfstreet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/US-electricity-generation-2001-2016.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"514\" height=\"338\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This trend continues in 2017. On Friday, the EIA released its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eia.gov\/electricity\/monthly\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Electric Power Monthly<\/a>, with power generation data through September 2017. Over these nine months, electricity generation has fallen by 2.6% compared to the same period a year ago. Part of the year-over-year drop in August and September was due to the damaged electric grid in the areas affected by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>US Demand for Electricity Falls Further: What Does it Mean? Layoffs at GE Power, for example. The weekend started Friday night with layoff news from GE\u2019s power division, in two locations. First, there was Greenville County, South Carolina, where GE Power is one of the largest employers with 3,400 workers. \u201cBased on the current challenges [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[251,7499,312,17324,17322,17323,4254,4255],"class_list":["post-28524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","tag-eia","tag-electricity-consumption","tag-financial-crisis","tag-ge-power","tag-general-electric-power","tag-us-electricity-demand","tag-wolf-richter","tag-wolfstreet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28524"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28525,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28524\/revisions\/28525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}