Share of utility-scale installed capacity, by source
This interactive map and sortable table show every utility-scale natural gas power plant in the United States, all 2,474 plants of 1 MW or larger in the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s EIA-860 (2025 early release) whose primary energy source is natural gas, color-coded by technology: combined cycle (585), combustion turbine (903), steam turbine (355), reciprocating engine (483) and fuel cell (148). Natural gas is the largest source of US electricity and the largest fleet on this site, at roughly 580 GW of active and standby capacity. Plants are shown across all statuses: active (1,975), standby (104), in development (66) and decommissioned (329), and most new generation proposed in the US today is still gas. Together, the 1,975 active natural gas plants mapped here have a combined capacity of about 573,800 MW (~574 GW). Source: U.S. EIA Form EIA-860 (2025 early release), Schedules 2 (Plant) and 3 (Generator), with every plant’s status and capacity then reviewed against the Preliminary Monthly Electric Generator Inventory (EIA-860M), June 2026.
Capacity is what is installed; generation is what actually ran. Natural Gas holds 43.39% of US utility-scale generating capacity and produced 40.75% of the electricity in 2025, an implied capacity factor of 36.0% on a nameplate basis. Nuclear is the extreme case in one direction, at 7.32% of capacity for 17.70% of generation; solar is the extreme in the other, at 12.50% for 6.67%.
Sources, basis and how the totals reconcile
Sources. Generation is EIA Electric Power Monthly, Table 1.1, Net Generation by Energy Source: Total (All Sectors), annual 2025 row. EIA marks 2025 and 2026 values as preliminary; 2024 and earlier are final, so these shares may be revised. Capacity is this site’s own datasets from EIA-860 (2025 early release), reconciled against EIA-860M (June 2026).
Basis. Both charts cover utility-scale plants of 1 MW or larger, generating sources only. Battery storage is excluded from the capacity chart because it shifts power rather than producing it, and estimated small-scale rooftop solar (93,148 GWh in 2025) is excluded from the generation chart so the two stay comparable.
Totals. The generation slices sum to 4,434,820 GWh. EIA’s published net total is 4,429,502 GWh, being that figure less 5,320 GWh of net pumped-storage hydro, which EIA reports as a negative because pumping consumes more electricity than generation returns, and a further 2 GWh that EIA attributes to independent rounding. Pumped storage is left out of the pie because a negative value cannot be drawn as a slice. Percentages use largest-remainder rounding at two decimal places so each chart adds to 100.00%.
Category notes. EIA reports wind, biomass and geothermal as one 526,246 GWh category; the split here carries a one-unit adjustment on wind so the three reconcile to that published total. Biomass covers wood and wood waste, black liquor, landfill gas, sludge waste, agricultural byproducts and biogenic municipal solid waste. Other fossil gas is blast furnace gas, gaseous propane and other manufactured waste gases; Other is hydrogen, non-biogenic municipal solid waste, batteries, purchased steam, sulfur and tire-derived fuel. One definitional seam is worth knowing: EIA-860 files gaseous propane under petroleum products, while Table 1.1 files it under other fossil gas, so the same fuel sits in the Petroleum slice on the capacity chart and the Other fossil gas slice on the generation chart. Only one 2.3 MW plant is affected.
Share of utility-scale electricity generated, by source
EIA preliminary data
Natural gas is the grid’s swing producer and shows the deepest daily swing of any large source. Combined-cycle units follow load through the day and simple-cycle peakers add output for the late-afternoon and evening peak, then most of the fleet backs down overnight.
Method: this is a modeled profile, not metered data. The 24-hour mean of 36.0% is the implied annual capacity factor, calculated as 2025 generation from EIA Electric Power Monthly Table 1.1 divided by the nameplate capacity of the active fleet on this page multiplied by 8,760 hours. EIA’s own published capacity factors use net summer capacity as the denominator and therefore run higher. The hourly shape applies the documented operating behaviour of this technology to that mean and is indicative rather than measured; metered hourly output would come from the EIA Hourly Electric Grid Monitor, which is not yet wired into this page.
| # | Plant | Type | State | Nearest city | Operator | Status | Capacity | Online |
|---|
The efficient workhorse: a combustion turbine’s hot exhaust is recovered to raise steam for a second, steam turbine. Combined-cycle plants run much of the day and hold the most capacity of any gas type.
Simple-cycle combustion turbines and reciprocating engines start in minutes to meet demand spikes and back up wind and solar. Fuel cells are a small, very clean niche. Older gas-fired steam turbines are gradually retiring.
Natural gas is the largest source of US electricity (~40%+ of generation) and the largest fleet on this site at roughly 580 GW. Most new capacity proposed today is still gas, so this is also where most in-development plants are.
Any utility-scale plant (1 MW or larger) in EIA-860 (2025 early release) with at least one generator whose primary energy source is natural gas (code NG). That yields 2,474 plants after reconciliation with EIA-860M (June 2026). Type is set by the generator’s prime mover. Filtering on the primary fuel excludes coal or oil plants that merely co-fire gas.
Combined cycle pairs a combustion turbine with a steam turbine that recovers exhaust heat (most efficient). Combustion turbine is a simple-cycle jet-style turbine used for peaking. Reciprocating engine is a gas-fired piston engine. Steam turbine is an older gas-fired boiler. Fuel cell converts gas to electricity electrochemically.
About 580 GW of active and standby capacity; that is by far the largest fleet on this site. Natural gas is the single largest source of US electricity, supplying roughly 40–43% of generation in recent years.
Yes. Although wind, solar and storage dominate new additions, natural gas is still actively built, and this dataset shows dozens of plants in development, chiefly combined-cycle and fast-start peaking units to back up renewables and meet rising demand.
Older, less-efficient gas-fired steam turbines are retiring as newer combined-cycle plants and renewables displace them. The dataset includes several hundred retired gas units.
It is the EIA-860 2025 early release (Schedules 2 and 3). EIA notes the early release is not fully edited and may withhold a few plants pending validation; a small number of proposed plants without published coordinates are omitted from the map.
Natural gas is the most-installed source in the country, and the map shows why it became indispensable. Plants cluster along the Gulf Coast near the shale basins and pipelines, and throughout the populous East and Midwest near demand. The fleet splits into two roles: efficient combined-cycle plants that provide bulk power for much of the day, and simple-cycle turbines and engines that start within minutes to cover peaks and back up renewables.
At roughly 573 GW of active capacity, gas exceeds coal and nuclear combined, and unlike coal it is still being built; dozens of plants remain in development. But its role is shifting. Rather than running flat-out as baseload, more of the fleet now ramps up and down to balance a grid increasingly shaped by solar and wind. That flexibility, not just raw output, is what keeps gas central even as renewables surge. We unpack that partnership in Solar Is Booming, Gas Still Dominates.