Power to the People – Progress Report
Every so often, we like to peer into the particular details of U.S. power generation and statistics, here are the current numbers:
What is U.S. electricity generation by energy source?
In 2022, about 4,243 billion kilowatthours (kWh) (or about 4.24 trillion kWh) of electricity were generated at utility-scale electricity generation facilities in the United States.1 About 60% of this electricity generation was from fossil fuels—coal, natural gas, petroleum, and other gases. About 18% was from nuclear energy, and about 22% was from renewable energy sources.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that an additional 58 billion kWh of electricity generation was from small-scale solar photovoltaic systems in 2022.2
U.S. utility-scale electricity generation by source, amount, and share of total in 20221
Data as of February 2023
| Energy source | Billion kWh | Share of total |
|---|---|---|
| Total – all sources | 4,243 | |
| Fossil fuels (total) | 2,554 | 60.2% |
| Natural gas | 1,689 | 39.8% |
| Coal | 828 | 19.5% |
| Petroleum (total) | 23 | 0.6% |
| Petroleum liquids | 16 | 0.4% |
| Petroleum coke | 7 | 0.2% |
| Other gases3 | 12 | 0.3% |
| Nuclear | 772 | 18.2% |
| Renewables (total) | 913 | 21.5% |
| Wind | 435 | 10.2% |
| Hydropower | 262 | 6.2% |
| Solar (total) | 146 | 3.4% |
| Photovoltaic | 143 | 3.4% |
| Solar thermal | 3 | 0.1% |
| Biomass (total) | 53 | 1.3% |
| Wood | 37 | 0.9% |
| Landfill gas | 9 | 0.2% |
| Municipal solid waste (biogenic) | 6 | 0.1% |
| Other biomass waste | 2 | 0.1% |
| Geothermal | 17 | 0.4% |
| Pumped storage hydropower4 | -6 | -0.1% |
| Other sources5 | 11 | 0.3% |
Source: eia.gov
Our Previous Power to the People Reports Below –
We are happy to report updated information from the 2020 U.S. Energy Production Statistics.
It seems as though things are looking up.
Below are the statisticts from our previous report from 2016:
According to eia.gov here is a breakdown of U.S. Energy production.*
- Coal = 33%
- Natural gas = 33%
- Nuclear = 20%
- Hydropower = 6%
- Other renewables = 7%
Biomass = 1.6%
Geothermal = 0.4%
Solar = 0.6%
Wind = 4.7% - Petroleum = 1%
- Other gases = <1%
*Above statistics for year 2016
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration
