Free data · source: EIA · 17 archived snapshots · Dec 2008 to Dec 2024
What actually got built, and what closed.
Every registration list we capture is kept, so the list stops being a snapshot of today and starts being a record of change. This compares the oldest archived capture of the United States against the newest.
Biggest gain: Natural Gas, +132.6 GW. Biggest fall: Coal, -145.9 GW. Fuel types with no registered capacity in 2008 and some today: Storage .
Capacity by fuel
Registered nameplate capacity, not energy generated: a battery and a coal unit of the same rating count the same here, though they run very differently.
| Fuel | Dec 2008 (GW) | Dec 2024 (GW) | Change (GW) | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Natural Gas | 431.1 | 563.7 | +132.6 | +31% |
| Wind | 25.0 | 153.4 | +128.4 | +514% |
| Solar | 0.5 | 124.3 | +123.8 | +23,005% |
| Storage | 0.0 | 27.3 | +27.3 | new |
| Hydro | 97.1 | 101.2 | +4.1 | +4% |
| Waste Oil | 1.2 | 2.4 | +1.3 | +111% |
| Geothermal | 3.2 | 3.8 | +0.6 | +19% |
| Wood Waste | 7.4 | 7.7 | +0.3 | +5% |
| Landfill Gas | 1.5 | 1.5 | +0.1 | +5% |
| Petroleum Coke | 1.7 | 1.5 | -0.2 | -14% |
| Renewable Waste | 3.3 | 2.9 | -0.4 | -12% |
| Other Gases | 2.2 | 1.7 | -0.4 | -21% |
| Other | 0.9 | 0.4 | -0.5 | -53% |
| Waste Coal | 2.2 | 1.6 | -0.6 | -28% |
| Nuclear | 106.1 | 102.6 | -3.5 | -3% |
| Distillate Fuel Oil | 25.1 | 19.6 | -5.6 | -22% |
| Residual Fuel Oil | 30.9 | 6.6 | -24.3 | -79% |
| Coal | 332.1 | 186.2 | -145.9 | -44% |
The archive
One row per captured snapshot. Each is kept in full, with the original file it came from, so these numbers can be recomputed — or computed differently — without going back to the source.
| Captured | Registered units | Capacity (GW) | Relative scale |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 2008 | 15,693 | 1,071.5 | |
| Dec 2009 | 15,906 | 1,090.6 | |
| Dec 2010 | 16,163 | 1,106.3 | |
| Dec 2011 | 16,548 | 1,119.1 | |
| Dec 2012 | 17,027 | 1,136.7 | |
| Dec 2013 | 17,312 | 1,137.3 | |
| Dec 2014 | 17,796 | 1,144.0 | |
| Dec 2015 | 18,188 | 1,144.1 | |
| Dec 2016 | 18,790 | 1,153.2 | |
| Dec 2017 | 19,491 | 1,165.9 | |
| Dec 2018 | 20,090 | 1,174.3 | |
| Dec 2019 | 20,670 | 1,178.1 | |
| Dec 2020 | 21,372 | 1,193.6 | |
| Dec 2021 | 22,567 | 1,221.8 | |
| Dec 2022 | 23,263 | 1,234.2 | |
| Dec 2023 | 23,942 | 1,263.2 | |
| Dec 2024 | 24,864 | 1,308.5 |
Source: EIA, latest capture Dec 2024. See the current US list, or the Australian equivalent.
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