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Electricity Monthly Update

With Data for December 2022 Release Date: February 27, 2023 Next Release Date: March 24, 2023

Highlights: December 2022

  • Electricity demand set a new 12-month high on the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) system on December 22 at 11,068 megawatts.

  • New 12-month high wholesale prices were set at eight of ten selected natural gas trading hubs and six of ten selected electricity trading hubs.

  • The Northeast saw a large increase in electricity generation from other fossil fuels due to the cold snap that ocurred in late December 2022.

Key indicators

Statewide average temperature ranks
Statewide precipitation ranks
Total net generation
Net generation by select fuel sources

The increase in U.S. electric-generating capacity in 2023 will be the largest net change since 2003

U.S. planned electric-utility generating capacity additions and retirements, 2023

Data source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Preliminary Monthly Electric Generator Inventory, December 2022.

More than 56.1 gigawatts (GW) of new utility-scale electric-generating capacity is expected to be added to the U.S. power grid during 2023, the largest amount of added capacity since 2002. These additions will more than offset the expected retirement of about 14.5 GW of capacity, resulting in a net capacity gain of nearly 41.6 GW, the largest change since 2003.

In 2023, more than half (52%) of the 56.1 GW of capacity additions will be solar, followed by battery storage at 17%. Coal-fired units account for 8.9 GW (62%) of the total 14.5 GW of capacity scheduled to be retired, followed by 5.2 GW (36%) of natural gas-fired units set to close.

Capacity addition

Solar. U.S. utility-scale solar capacity has been rising rapidly since 2010. Despite its upward trend over the past decade, additions of utility-scale solar capacity declined by 23% in 2022 compared with 2021 because of supply chain disruptions and other pandemic-related challenges. We expect that some of those delayed 2022 projects will begin operation in 2023, when 29 GW of utility-scale solar is expected to be added. If all of this capacity comes online as planned, 2023 will add the most utility-scale solar capacity to the U.S. power grid in a single year, more than doubling the 13.4 GW added in 2021, the current record.

Battery storage. U.S. battery storage capacity has grown rapidly over the past couple of years. In 2023, U.S. battery capacity will likely more than double. Another 9.5 GW of battery storage is expected to be added in 2023 to the existing 8.8 GW of battery storage capacity. In 2023, we expect 73% of the new battery storage capacity will be in California and Texas, states with significant solar and wind capacity.

Natural gas. In 2023, 7.8 GW of new natural-gas fired capacity is expected to be added, 80% of which is from combined-cycle plants. The two largest natural gas plants expected to come online in 2023 are the 1,836 megawatt (MW) Guernsey Power Station in Ohio and the 1,214 MW CPV Three Rivers Energy Center in Illinois.

Wind. In 2023, 7.5 GW of utility-scale wind capacity is expected to be added to the grid. The pace of annual U.S. wind capacity additions has slowed, following record additions of more than 14 GW in both 2020 and 2021. The most wind capacity will be added in Texas in 2023, at 2.2 GW. A single offshore wind facility is expected to come online this year: the 130 MW South Fork Wind facility off the coast of Long Island, New York. South Fork will be the second offshore wind facility in the United States, following the 29 MW Block Island, Rhode Island, wind farm that opened in December 2016.

Nuclear. Two new nuclear reactors at the Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia are scheduled to come online in 2023, several years later than originally planned. The reactors, with a combined 2.2 GW of capacity, are the first next generation design nuclear units built in the United States.

Retirement

Coal. Substantial U.S. coal-fired capacity has retired over the past decade; a record 14.9 GW was retired in 2015. Annual coal retirements decreased to 5.6 GW in 2021 after averaging 11.0 GW a year from 2015 to 2020, before increasing to 11.5 GW in 2022. This year, 8.9 GW of coal-fired capacity is expected to retire, which is 4.5% of the total coal-fired capacity at the start of the year

The largest coal plant expected to retire this year is the 1,490 MW W.H. Sammis Power Plant in Ohio. The oldest four of the plant’s seven coal-fired units were retired in 2020; the last three units will be shut down this year, along with the plant’s five petroleum-fired units (13 MW of combined capacity). Pleasants Power Station (1,278 MW) in West Virginia is the second-largest coal plant retirement expected this year.

Natural gas. This year, 5.2 GW of U.S. natural gas-fired capacity is scheduled to retire, representing 1% of the operating natural gas fleet as of January. Most of the retiring natural gas capacity is made up of older steam and combustion turbine units, which produce electricity less efficiently than many of the newer combined-cycle natural gas units.

Power plants fueled by natural gas slated for retirement in 2023 mostly have been kept in reserve to meet power demand during peak periods. As a result, the 5.2 GW of natural gas-fired capacity scheduled to retire operated, on average, at a 7% capacity factor in 2021. The situation is different for coal-fired plants slated for closure in 2023 because the average capacity factor for those plants was much higher at 26%.