Capacity factor

This is a measure of a how close to its maximum capacity a power plant is running over a period of time. It is calculated by dividing the plant’s actual output by the amount of power it would have produced had it been running at 100% of its capacity over that time. So, in theory, a 1MW power plant would have a 100% capacity factor over a year if it produced 1 MWh of electricity for every hour in that year (8760 MWh in total). However, in practice, no power plant runs at 100% of its capacity, though some have higher capacity factors than over. Renewables have a lower capacity factor (around 30%-40%) than conventional fossil fuel plants (around 60%).