In the United States, electricity derived from coal has decreased over the past two decades, with the annual output declining by almost 65 percent between 2010 and 2024. In contrast, there has been a rise in natural gas and renewable sources within the energy mix. How is electricity generated in the U.S.? Most electricity in the U.S. is generated from steam turbines, which can be powered by fossil and nuclear fuels, biomass, geothermal, and solar thermal energy. Other systems such as gas turbines, hydro turbines, wind turbines, and solar photovoltaics are also major generation technologies. Electric utilities in the U.S. generated more than 2,241 terawatt hours in 2024, accounting for just over half of the power output in the country that year. Growing renewable capacity Renewable sources have become more prominent in the U.S. over the past years, particularly wind, hydro, and solar energy. The former has overtaken conventional hydropower, becoming the leading renewable energy source in the U.S. since 2019. Wind and solar power have also accounted for the largest share of electricity capacity additions in the country in recent years.

Throughout the past decade, the United States has been notably decreasing its use of coal, and increasing the use of natural gas and renewable energy sources for electricity generation. In 2024, natural gas was by far the largest source of electricity in the North American country, with a generation share of 43 percent. Renewable energy's share amounted to 24 percent that year.

The dataset encompasses monthly electricity generation data spanning from January 2001 to September 2023. It includes various columns, notably "Month" indicating the specific month and year, and "All Fuels (Utility-Scale)" providing the total electricity generation in thousand megawatt-hours. The dataset further breaks down electricity generation into specific sources, such as coal, natural gas, nuclear, conventional hydroelectric, wind, and all solar. Each entry in the dataset corresponds to a particular month, and the values represent the electricity generation from the specified sources in thousand megawatt-hours. For instance, in September 2023, the total electricity generation was 358,136.26 thousand megawatt-hours, with contributions from coal, natural gas, nuclear, conventional hydroelectric, wind, and all solar sources. This dataset provides a comprehensive overview of the electricity generation landscape over the specified timeframe, allowing for detailed analyses and insights into the dynamics of different energy sources.

Purpose: The purpose of this dataset is to provide a detailed record of monthly electricity generation from various sources over the period from September 2001 to September 2023. The dataset aims to offer insights into the dynamics of energy production, specifically focusing on different fuel sources utilized for generating electricity.

Key aspects and purposes of this dataset include:

Energy Source Analysis: The dataset enables an analysis of the contribution of different energy sources (coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydroelectric, wind, and solar) to the overall electricity generation. This analysis is crucial for understanding the diversity of the energy mix.

Temporal Trends: By spanning over a lengthy period, the dataset allows for the identification of temporal trends and patterns in electricity generation. This information is valuable for assessing the evolution of energy production strategies and identifying any long-term shifts.

Policy and Market Impact: Changes in electricity generation over time can be influenced by various factors, including policy decisions, market dynamics, and technological advancements. Researchers and policymakers can use this dataset to assess the impact of such factors on the energy landscape.

Renewable Energy Assessment: With data on renewable sources like wind and solar, the dataset facilitates the evaluation of the role of renewable energy in the overall electricity generation. This is particularly important for monitoring progress towards sustainable and environmentally friendly energy practices.

Resource Planning: Utilities, energy companies, and policymakers can use the dataset for resource planning and decision-making. Understanding the trends in electricity generation helps in optimizing resource allocation and planning for future energy needs.

Environmental Impact: The dataset provides insights into the environmental impact of electricity generation, as different sources have varying levels of environmental sustainability. This information is valuable for assessing the overall environmental footprint of the energy sector. In summary, the dataset serves as a valuable resource for stakeholders in the energy sector, researchers, and policymakers, providing a comprehensive view of electricity generation trends and patterns over time, and facilitating informed decision-making regarding energy policies and practices.

In 2024, some 453 terawatt hours of electricity was generated from wind sources in 2024, making this the most used renewable source in the United States. By comparison, electricity generation from conventional hydroelectric power plants stood at almost 240 terawatt hours.

Fossil fuels remain the greatest source of electricity generation worldwide. In 2024, coal accounted for roughly **** percent of the global power mix, while natural gas followed with a ***** percent share. China, India, and the United States accounted for the largest share of coal used for electricity generation. The future of renewable energy Fossil fuel use notwithstanding, the share of renewables in global electricity has seen a more pronounced year-on-year growth in recent years, following increased efforts by governments to combat global warming and a decrease in levelized costs. Projections indicate that renewables will surpass fossil fuels as the main power source by 2040. Electricity consumption in the world China is the largest electricity consumer in the world, requiring almost ***** terawatt-hours of electricity every year. However, this economic power accounts for the largest population in the world and its electricity consumption per capita is almost tenfold smaller than the consumption of Iceland, although the power used in this country came almost completely from clean sources.

The United States consumes 4.2 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity and over half of that power is produced by the coal and natural gas power plants. Coal-based power has historically been the leading source of electricity in the United States. The outburst of natural gas availability and the implementation of burdensome environmental regulations have caused the industry to undergo a major structural transformation. Industry revenue is set to swell at a CAGR of 2.1% to $105.2 billion through 2025, including a 1.8% uptick in 2025 alone. Gas-fired power overtook coal-fired power as the nation's primary electricity generation method in 2016. Not only had natural gas prices become significantly more affordable than coal, but highly efficient and low emissions combined cycle combustion engines were also gaining national traction. Unregulated wholesale markets provided a competitive battleground where more efficient independent power producers could offer their electricity to consumers at more affordable costs while still earning higher profit than coal-fired plants. While electric power consumption will swell, up to one-fifth of coal-based energy will be retired by the end of 2030 as the United States aims to achieve a renewable future. Natural gas will be important in helping deliver affordable and clean power throughout our nation. Nonetheless, while renewable energy has made its mark through 2025, it will be significantly slowed down through 2030 as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act will phase out tax credits for solar and wind power much earlier than expected. The Department of Energy will also provide $625.0 million in funding for coal power plants to improve their lifespan. While plants are set to retire, it is set to move at a much slower rate than previously anticipated. Nonetheless, the US Energy Information Administration expects both coal and natural gas output to push down through 2030, hindering growth. Overall, revenue is set to push down at a CAGR of 1.6% to $96.8 billion through 2030.

United States US: Electricity Production From Coal Sources: % of Total data was reported at 34.233 % in 2015. This records a decrease from the previous number of 39.651 % for 2014. United States US: Electricity Production From Coal Sources: % of Total data is updated yearly, averaging 51.846 % from Dec 1960 (Median) to 2015, with 56 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 57.679 % in 1988 and a record low of 34.233 % in 2015. United States US: Electricity Production From Coal Sources: % of Total data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United States – Table US.World Bank.WDI: Energy Production and Consumption. Sources of electricity refer to the inputs used to generate electricity. Coal refers to all coal and brown coal, both primary (including hard coal and lignite-brown coal) and derived fuels (including patent fuel, coke oven coke, gas coke, coke oven gas, and blast furnace gas). Peat is also included in this category.; ; IEA Statistics © OECD/IEA 2014 (http://www.iea.org/stats/index.asp), subject to https://www.iea.org/t&c/termsandconditions/; Weighted average; Electricity production shares may not sum to 100 percent because other sources of generated electricity (such as geothermal, solar, and wind) are not shown. Restricted use: Please contact the International Energy Agency for third-party use of these data.

United States US: Electricity Production From Natural Gas Sources: % of Total data was reported at 31.942 % in 2015. This records an increase from the previous number of 26.888 % for 2014. United States US: Electricity Production From Natural Gas Sources: % of Total data is updated yearly, averaging 17.344 % from Dec 1960 (Median) to 2015, with 56 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 31.942 % in 2015 and a record low of 9.464 % in 1988. United States US: Electricity Production From Natural Gas Sources: % of Total data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United States – Table US.World Bank.WDI: Energy Production and Consumption. Sources of electricity refer to the inputs used to generate electricity. Gas refers to natural gas but excludes natural gas liquids.; ; IEA Statistics © OECD/IEA 2014 (http://www.iea.org/stats/index.asp), subject to https://www.iea.org/t&c/termsandconditions/; Weighted average; Electricity production shares may not sum to 100 percent because other sources of generated electricity (such as geothermal, solar, and wind) are not shown. Restricted use: Please contact the International Energy Agency for third-party use of these data.

The City and County Energy Profiles lookup table provides modeled electricity and natural gas consumption and expenditures, on-road vehicle fuel consumption, vehicle miles traveled, and associated emissions for each U.S. city and county. Please note this data is modeled and more precise data may be available from regional, state, or other sources. The modeling approach for electricity and natural gas is described in Sector-Specific Methodologies for Subnational Energy Modeling: https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy19osti/72748.pdf. This data is part of a suite of state and local energy profile data available at the "State and Local Energy Profile Data Suite" link below and complements the wealth of data, maps, and charts on the State and Local Planning for Energy (SLOPE) platform, available at the "Explore State and Local Energy Data on SLOPE" link below. Examples of how to use the data to inform energy planning can be found at the "Example Uses" link below.

U.S. Monthly Renewable Energy Consumption by Source and Sector (1973-2024)

https://www.googleapis.com/download/storage/v1/b/kaggle-user-content/o/inbox%2F8734253%2F0fe60a09cda8f60e446422f6721e68f5%2Frenewable%20energy%20consumption%20flag.png?generation=1715139420693463&alt=media" alt=""> This dataset provides monthly data on renewable energy consumption in the United States from January 1973 to December 2024, broken down by energy source and consumption sector. The data is sourced from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Renewable energy has become an increasingly important part of the U.S. energy mix in recent years as the country seeks to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and dependence on fossil fuels. This dataset allows for detailed analysis of renewable energy trends over time and across different sectors of the economy.

IMPORTANT: Dataset Info

• Every entry that has a value of 0 means that the datapoint was either "Not Available," "No Data Reported," or "Not Meaningful"
• You most likely want to exclude the column titled Total Renewable Energy from your comparative analysis across fuel types as it represents the sum of the others

Columns

Context:

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, most of the nation's electricity was generated by natural gas, nuclear energy, and coal in 2020.

Electricity is also produced from renewable sources such as wind, hydropower, solar power, biomass, wind, and geothermal. Together, renewable energy sources generated about 20% of the country's electricity in 2020.

To produce electricity, a turbine generator set converts mechanical energy to electrical energy. In the cases of natural gas, coal, nuclear fission, biomass, petroleum, geothermal and solar thermal, the heat that is produced is used to create steam, which moves the blades of the turbine. In the cases of wind power and hydropower, turbine blades are moved directly by flowing wind and water, respectively. Solar photovoltaic panels convert sunlight directly to electricity using semiconductors.

The amount of energy produced by each source depends on the mix of fuels and energy sources used in your area. To learn more, see the emissions section. Learn more about electricity production from the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration.

About the data:

The data is a monthly entry of the net generated electricity from a particular sector in the United States.

Acknowledgement:

This data is provided by scraping the website: https://eia.gov/ All credits and rights belong to them.

Power Plants in the U.S.This feature layer, utilizing data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), depicts all operable electric generating plants by energy source in the U.S. This includes plants that are operating, on standby, or short- or long-term out of service. The data covers all plants with a combined nameplate capacity of 1 MW (Megawatt) or more.Per EIA, "The United States uses many different energy sources and technologies to generate electricity. The sources and technologies have changed over time, and some are used more than others. The three major categories of energy for electricity generation are fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, and petroleum), nuclear energy, and renewable energy sources. Most electricity is generated with steam turbines using fossil fuels, nuclear, biomass, geothermal, and solar thermal energy. Other major electricity generation technologies include gas turbines, hydro turbines, wind turbines, and solar photovoltaics."Madison Gas & Electric Company, Sycamore Power PlantData currency: This cached Esri service is checked monthly for updates from its federal source (Power Plants)Data modification: NoneFor more information, please visit:Electricity ExplainedEIA-860, Annual Electric Generator ReportEIA-860M, Monthly Update to the Annual Electric Generator ReportEIA-923, Power Plant Operations ReportSupport documentation: MetadataFor feedback: ArcGIScomNationalMaps@esri.comEnergy Information AdministrationPer EIA, "The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) collects, analyzes, and disseminates independent and impartial energy information to promote sound policymaking, efficient markets, and public understanding of energy and its interaction with the economy and the environment."

State-level data on all energy sources. Data on production, consumption, reserves, stocks, prices, imports, and exports. Data are collated from state-specific data reported elsewhere on the EIA website and are the most recent values available. Data on U.S. territories also available.

Context

This is a nicely formatted version of the US Energy Information Administration's U.S. Electric System Operating Data.

It's broken out by aggregation level: US, Regions, Balancing authorities and Balancing authority subregion. Then within that it's broken out into either region, balancing authority or individual utility.

Then each csv is includes data on - BA-to-BA interchange (suffix ID.H) - Day-ahead demand forecast (DF.H) - Demand (D.H) - Net generation by energy source (NG.SUN.H, NG.COL.H, NG.NG.H etc) - Net generation (NG.H) - Total interchange (TI.H)

Note: .H in the suffix stands for hourly in UTC time.

You can see the full data dictionary in data_dictionary.csv

Raw data

The raw data comes from the EIA's bulk data download facility. It's downloaded using this notebook. And structured using this notebook.

United States US: Electricity Production From Oil: Gas And Coal Sources: % of Total data was reported at 67.238 % in 2015. This records a decrease from the previous number of 67.462 % for 2014. United States US: Electricity Production From Oil: Gas And Coal Sources: % of Total data is updated yearly, averaging 72.459 % from Dec 1960 (Median) to 2015, with 56 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 83.232 % in 1966 and a record low of 67.238 % in 2015. United States US: Electricity Production From Oil: Gas And Coal Sources: % of Total data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United States – Table US.World Bank.WDI: Energy Production and Consumption. Sources of electricity refer to the inputs used to generate electricity. Oil refers to crude oil and petroleum products. Gas refers to natural gas but excludes natural gas liquids. Coal refers to all coal and brown coal, both primary (including hard coal and lignite-brown coal) and derived fuels (including patent fuel, coke oven coke, gas coke, coke oven gas, and blast furnace gas). Peat is also included in this category.; ; IEA Statistics © OECD/IEA 2014 (http://www.iea.org/stats/index.asp), subject to https://www.iea.org/t&c/termsandconditions/; Weighted average; Restricted use: Please contact the International Energy Agency for third-party use of these data.

United States US: Electricity Production From Oil Sources: % of Total data was reported at 0.904 % in 2015. This records a decrease from the previous number of 0.923 % for 2014. United States US: Electricity Production From Oil Sources: % of Total data is updated yearly, averaging 4.834 % from Dec 1960 (Median) to 2015, with 56 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 17.167 % in 1977 and a record low of 0.774 % in 2012. United States US: Electricity Production From Oil Sources: % of Total data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United States – Table US.World Bank.WDI: Energy Production and Consumption. Sources of electricity refer to the inputs used to generate electricity. Oil refers to crude oil and petroleum products.; ; IEA Statistics © OECD/IEA 2014 (http://www.iea.org/stats/index.asp), subject to https://www.iea.org/t&c/termsandconditions/; Weighted average; Electricity production shares may not sum to 100 percent because other sources of generated electricity (such as geothermal, solar, and wind) are not shown. Restricted use: Please contact the International Energy Agency for third-party use of these data.

Whether you wonder to know how's the electricity demand is evolving in the US during the year or you would like to know how's the electricity mix has evolved through time, that's the dataset for you!

Energy is always something we have taken for granted, but in recent years with all the bottlenecks and geopolitical problems that have followed one another, it has become an increasingly central theme.

Directly pulled off from the EIA API, in this Kaggle dataset you can find hourly data about the energy production by each source in the US.

Possible Data science problems: - EDA - Energy demand forecasting - Electricity production forecasting by source - and many more

Data on annual emissions of Carbon Dioxide (CO2), Sulfur Dioxide (SO2), and Nitrogen Oxides (NOx). Data organized by type of electric power producer, by energy source, and by U.S. state. Annual time series extend back to 1990. Based on Form EIA-861 data. Electric Power Producer: Commercial Cogen, Commercial Non-Cogen, Electric Utility, Industrial Cogen, Industrial Non-Cogen, IPP NAICS-22 Cogen, IPP NAICS-22 Non-Cogen, and Total Electric Power Industry Energy Source: Coal, Geothermal, Natural Gas, Other, Other Biomass, Other Gases, Wood and Wood Derived Fuels, Petroleum, and All Energy Sources

Petroleum is the primary source of energy in the United States, with a consumption of 35.35 quadrillion British thermal units in 2024. Closely following, the U.S. had 34.2 quadrillion British thermal units of energy derived from natural gas. Energy consumption by sector in the United States Petroleum is predominantly utilized as a fuel in the transportation sector, which is also the second-largest consumer of energy in the U.S. with almost 30 percent of the country’s total energy consumption in 2024. This figure is topped only by the energy-guzzling industrial sector, a major consumer of fossil fuels such as petroleum and natural gas. Renewable energy in the United States Despite the prevalence of fossil fuels in the U.S. energy mix, the use of renewable energy consumption has grown immensely in the last decades to approximately 6.7 exajoules in 2024. Most of the renewable energy produced in the U.S. is derived from biomass, hydro, and wind sources. In 2024, renewable electricity accounted for approximately 24 percent of the nation’s total electricity generation.

United States US: Electricity Production From Hydroelectric Sources: % of Total data was reported at 5.842 % in 2015. This records a decrease from the previous number of 6.054 % for 2014. United States US: Electricity Production From Hydroelectric Sources: % of Total data is updated yearly, averaging 9.342 % from Dec 1960 (Median) to 2015, with 56 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 18.881 % in 1962 and a record low of 4.904 % in 2001. United States US: Electricity Production From Hydroelectric Sources: % of Total data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United States – Table US.World Bank.WDI: Energy Production and Consumption. Sources of electricity refer to the inputs used to generate electricity. Hydropower refers to electricity produced by hydroelectric power plants.; ; IEA Statistics © OECD/IEA 2014 (http://www.iea.org/stats/index.asp), subject to https://www.iea.org/t&c/termsandconditions/; Weighted average; Electricity production shares may not sum to 100 percent because other sources of generated electricity (such as geothermal, solar, and wind) are not shown. Restricted use: Please contact the International Energy Agency for third-party use of these data.