Methods & sources

Data as of this build

Coverage and known gaps

• EIA-860 covers plants with at least 1 MW of nameplate capacity. Smaller plants and most behind-the-meter generation (rooftop solar, many CHP units) are not included.
• The 50 states, DC and Puerto Rico. EIA does not survey Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa or the Northern Mariana Islands, so they are not on the map.
• Units that are absent from the latest 860M and were last reported before the latest final 860 year, and that are not marked retired or cancelled, are treated as no longer current and excluded from all totals. These are mostly old records that dropped out of EIA without a retirement entry.
• EIA-923 reports generation by plant, prime mover and fuel, not by unit. Unit-level output is not shown.
• Fuel costs for independent power producers are redacted by EIA and are not used anywhere on this site.
• Some EIA coordinates point to an office, substation or a rough location. Plants well outside their state's own cloud of points are flagged, and their cards say the location may be approximate.
• Turbine OEM and model are not in EIA data except for wind (EIA-860 wind schedule). Elsewhere they show as "coming soon". No equipment is named from other knowledge.

Plants, status and capacity

• Status comes from each generator's latest EIA-860M operating status. In service = operating (OP), standby (SB), out of service (OS, OA). Under construction = U, V, TS. Planned = P, L, T. A plant is "retirement planned" when every in-service unit has a planned retirement date.
• Capacity is nameplate MW of in-service generators unless labeled otherwise. Capacity factor uses net summer capacity.
• Primary fuel is the fuel category with the most in-service nameplate MW at the plant. A combined-cycle steam turbine reported on waste heat takes its combustion turbines' fuel.
• Fuel categories: Natural gas, Coal, Nuclear, Hydro, Wind, Solar, Battery, Oil, Geothermal, Other. Petroleum coke counts as coal and propane as gas (PUDL's grouping). "Other" is biomass, waste, landfill gas, waste heat and miscellaneous fuels.
• ISO / RTO is EIA-860's reported value when present. Otherwise it is the ISO whose own balancing authority the plant sits in (ERCO → ERCOT, CISO → CAISO, PJM, MISO, SWPP → SPP, NYIS → NYISO, ISNE → ISO-NE). EIA leaves the reported field blank for most plants.
• Ownership shares are weighted by in-service nameplate MW from EIA-860 Schedule 4. Units not listed there are wholly owned by the operator.

Capacity factor

CF = net MWh ÷ (net summer MW × hours in period)

• Computed on the plant's primary-fuel units. A dedicated solar, wind, hydro, geothermal or nuclear plant uses its own units. At mixed sites the gas, coal and oil units set the CF, with CT + CA counted as one combined-cycle block. Pumped storage is kept apart from conventional hydro, and batteries have no CF.
• 12-month CF uses the 12 months ending at the plant's latest EIA-923 month. That is the preliminary month for plants in EIA's monthly sample, and December of the latest final year for annual respondents. The window is shown with the number.
• Annual CF (plant page chart) uses each year's own EIA-860 summer ratings, pro-rated for units that entered or left service mid-year. Monthly CF uses current ratings applied to units in service that month.
• Values over 100% are flagged, not hidden. They usually mean the summer rating is below what the units actually produce, or that 860M lags 923 for a new plant.

Heat rate

Heat rate (Btu/kWh) = fuel consumed for electricity (MMBtu) × 1000 ÷ net MWh

• Fossil units only: steam turbines, combustion turbines, combined cycle, internal combustion engines and fuel cells burning gas, coal or oil. EIA-923 fuel is on a higher heating value (HHV) basis.
• Uses fuel consumed for electricity, not total fuel, so CHP plants aren't penalized for thermal output.
• CT and CA are rolled into one combined-cycle block. A steam turbine alone in a combined cycle has no fuel.
• Values outside 4,000–30,000 Btu/kWh are treated as reporting problems and not shown.

How it runs (duty class)

For gas, coal and oil plants only, using the capacity factor of their fossil units. Thresholds follow EPA's 2024 combustion-turbine load subcategories: baseload above 40%, intermediate 20–40%, peaking below 20%. "Rarely runs" (below 2%) is a sub-bucket of peaking. The class uses the 3-year average CF of the latest three final years, falling back to the last 12 months for newer plants, so one outage year doesn't flip the label.

Dual fuel

• Dual fuel means gas-fired combustion turbines (CT, GT, CA, CS) that can also burn liquid fuel. Gas-only and oil-only sites are not dual fuel. Internal combustion engines (black-start diesels) and steam-turbine boilers (ignition oil) are excluded.
• Likely still dual fuel means any distillate, kerosene, jet fuel or residual oil burned on those gas turbines in the plant's last 36 months of EIA-923 data. An annual test run counts.
• Units listed as oil-capable in the latest EIA-860 (Schedule 3 or a liquid second energy source) but with no burn in 36 months are shown as "listed in 860, no recent burn". Many plants have removed their liquid fuel systems. Capability is never carried forward from an older 860 year.
• Disagreements between EIA-860 and EIA-923 are flagged on the plant page, not hidden.

Build-out, retirements and region summaries

• Under construction and planned capacity comes from the latest EIA-860M. Rings on the map are sized by that MW and colored by the new capacity's fuel.
• Retirements are units with an EIA retirement date in 2020 or later.
• Region summaries count in-service capacity by each generator's own fuel. Net generation is for the latest final EIA-923 calendar year, by fuel burned. Battery and pumped-storage net generation is negative and listed separately.

Attribution and license

Data from the Public Utility Data Liberation Project (PUDL) by Catalyst Cooperative, licensed CC-BY 4.0, which processes public data from the EIA-860, EIA-860M and EIA-923 surveys. PowerPlantCentral changed the data as described on this page. CSV exports carry the source on every row.

Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), tiles by OpenFreeMap and OpenMapTiles. Boundaries from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Disclaimer

PowerPlantCentral is an independent site and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the EIA, Catalyst Cooperative or any plant owner or operator. Data is provided as is, without warranty of any kind. EIA data is self-reported, revised over time and sometimes wrong, and recent months are preliminary. Don't rely on this site for operational, safety, trading or investment decisions. Check the primary EIA filings.