Coal and natural gas' shares of US electric power generating capacity shrank in 2024 as generators continued to bring more renewable power options online and close or convert coal plants, government data show.
The country had 188,505MW of nameplate coal capacity at the end of December, down from 195,000MW a year earlier, according to US Energy Information Administration (EIA) generator inventory data. The total for 2024 included 234MW of capacity that was either available on standby or offline but expected to return to service within 12 months, plus 327MW of capacity that was offline and not expected to return to service. December 2023 had similar amounts of capacity in those three categories.
With less capacity operating last month, coal's portion of available US generating output slipped to 14pc from 15pc a year earlier.
Overall US power generating capacity increased by 42,284MW, or 3.3 pc, year-over-year to 1,321,492MW. This increase was higher than in the previous four years, when generating capacity expanded by an average of 20,000MW, or 1.6pc.
The gain in overall available capacity helped generators meet increased power demand, including from some business expansion.
Most of the capacity additions last year were renewable power. Generators added 31,662MW of solar generating capacity and 4,745MW of wind. Additionally, 10,844MW of battery storage was integrated into the mix, which in turn increased the availability of intermittent power.
Installed solar capacity climbed to 9.3pc of available US generating capacity in December from 7.1pc in the final month of 2023, which, when combined with wind's 12pc share of the market as well as hydropower and battery storage, expanded renewable power's lead over coal in terms of US generating capacity.
Nuclear generation capacity inched higher for the second consecutive year in 2024, following four years of declines.
In some cases, coal- and natural gas-fired generation has been more often treated as reserve power for when intermittent energy is not available. While the pace of coal plant retirements slowed last year, more closures are on the horizon. EIA recently projected nearly 8,600MW of coal will be retired this year and some other units will convert to natural gas.
EIA also expects about 3,000MW of natural gas capacity to be retired in 2025. But gas-fired capacity additions projected to come online this year account for 4.8GW, surpassing the planned gas retirements.
US generators ended last year with 571,768MW of operating natural gas capacity, up from 570,319MW at the end of December 2023, but gas' share of total US operating installed capacity fell by two percentage points to 43pc. This was the first decrease in gas' share since at least 2016 and followed five years of a steady presence in the US fuel mix.
But market participants who talked to Argus seemed to be more optimistic about the lifespan of remaining coal- and gas-fired units, given the scale of the projected increase in overall power demand and support from US president Donald Trump.
| Generating capacity in the US, | GW | |||||||||||||||||
| 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | ||||||||||
| Batteries | 26,208 | 2% | 15,364 | 1.2% | 8,842 | 0.7% | 4,671 | 0.4% | 1,652 | 0.1% | 1,025 | 0.1% | 846 | 0.1% | 708 | 0.1% | 545 | 0.05% |
| Coal | 188,505 | 14% | 195,576 | 15% | 215,281 | 17% | 227,394 | 18% | 237,063 | 20% | 248,866 | 21% | 264,842 | 22% | 283,269 | 24% | 294,151 | 25% |
| Natural Gas | 571,768 | 43% | 570,319 | 45% | 562,355 | 45% | 556,783 | 45% | 547,682 | 45% | 542,500 | 45% | 538,667 | 45% | 518,855 | 44% | 511,426 | 43% |
| Nuclear | 101,789 | 7.7% | 100,549 | 7.9% | 99,149 | 7.9% | 99,887 | 8.1% | 100,899 | 8.3% | 102,651 | 8.6% | 104,242 | 8.7% | 104,791 | 8.8% | 104,628 | 8.9% |
| Wind | 153,094 | 12% | 148,349 | 12% | 141,275 | 11% | 132,738 | 11% | 118,814 | 9.8% | 104,151 | 8.7% | 95,067 | 7.9% | 88,303 | 7.4% | 82,159 | 7% |
| Solar | 122,610 | 9.3% | 90,948 | 7.1% | 71,887 | 5.7% | 61,368 | 5% | 48,171 | 4.0% | 37,716 | 3.1% | 32,264 | 2.7% | 26,886 | 2.3% | 21,825 | 1.8% |
| Grand Total | 1,321,492 | 1,279,208 | 1,254,201 | 1,239,270 | 1,214,589 | 1,199,402 | 1,200,110 | 1,187,096 | 1,182,091 | |||||||||
| — EIA, Argus | ||||||||||||||||||
