In 2023, 94 quadrillion British thermal units (quads) was consumed in the United States, a 1% decrease from 2022, according to our Monthly Energy Review. Fossil fuels—petroleum, natural gas, and coal—accounted for nearly 83% of total U.S. energy consumption in 2023. Nonfossil fuel energy—from renewable sources and from nuclear—accounted for the other 17%. In 2023, petroleum remained the most-consumed fuel in the United States, as it has been for the past 73 years, and renewables exceeded coal for the first time in about 140 years.
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Weekly U.S. average gasoline prices have declined 19 cents per gallon (gal) since the 2024 high on April 22, falling to $3.48/gal on July 1, five cents/gal less than the price a year ago. Increasing gasoline inventories, relatively weak demand, and oil prices below recent peaks are all contributing to falling gasoline prices.
Read More ›Updated July 1 to include more dates in the data visualizations.
Electricity demand in the eastern and midwestern United States increased in June as a heatwave settled across the Midwest, mid-Atlantic, and Northeast regions of the United States. Demand across the Eastern Interconnection—which covers much of the mainland United States east of the Rocky Mountains except Texas—peaked at 502,670 megawatts (MW) in a single hour on June 21, compared with the hourly June peak of 467,609 MW in 2023.
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Consumption of electricity in the U.S. commercial sector has recovered from pandemic levels, with annual U.S. sales of electricity to commercial customers in 2023 totaling 14 billion kilowatthours (BkWh), or 1%, more than in 2019. However, the growth in commercial demand for electricity is concentrated in a handful of states experiencing rapid development of large-scale computing facilities such as data centers. Electricity demand has grown the most in Virginia, which added 14 BkWh, and Texas, which added 13 BkWh. Based on our expectation that regional electricity demand will grow, we revised our forecasts upward for commercial electricity demand through 2025 in our June Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO).
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The Panama Canal Authority (APC) announced this month that it will increase the number of daily booking slots for vessels transiting the Panama Canal to 35 in August, easing rules that restricted shipping traffic through the narrow waterway since last year. The APC increased booking slots following higher rainfall at Gatún Lake, increasing Neopanamax crossings of the canal’s larger locks to 10 vessels and Panamax crossings of the smaller locks to 25 vessels.
Read More ›Tags: international, weather, map, chokepoints
In 2023, energy production in the United States rose 4% to nearly 103 quadrillion British thermal units (quads), a record. Energy consumption in the United States fell 1% to 94 quads during the same period. Production exceeded consumption by 9 quads, more than at any other time in our records, which date to 1949.
Read More ›Updated July 1, 2024 to correct the units in the second chart.
As wind generation capacity has grown in the Midwest of the United States, grid operators have increasingly restricted wind generation because of both oversupply and congestion on the grid.
Read More ›Tags: generation, electricity, Midwest, wind
Electricity utilities increasingly report using batteries to move electricity from periods of low prices to periods of high prices, a strategy known as arbitrage, according to new detailed information we recently published.
Read More ›Tags: generation, electricity, storage, wind, solar, utility
Updated June 24 to clarify deliveries to Everett LNG comprised all LNG delivered by ship to New England in 2023. Some LNG imported into New England was delivered by truck.
On May 31, Constellation Energy retired the natural gas-fired Mystic Generating Station it owned and operated. Mystic was one of the oldest U.S. electric power plants, located in Charlestown, Massachusetts, on the north side of Boston.
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Electricity demand in New England surged this week as high temperatures persisted through much of the United States.
Read More ›Tags: consumption/demand, electricity, weather, New England
We estimate the annual reported volume of natural gas that is vented or flared in the United States declined to 0.5% of gross withdrawals in 2023, based on preliminary state and federal data. We estimate this percentage will be the lowest rate of venting and flaring recorded in 18 years.
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Operable atmospheric crude oil distillation capacity, our primary measure of refinery capacity in the United States, increased by 2%, or 324,000 barrels per day (b/d), in 2023, according to our recently published Refinery Capacity Report.
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Use of the coal fleet in PJM, the country’s largest wholesale electricity market, has fallen over the last decade, driven largely by higher relative fuel costs. Much of the competitive pressure has come from the significant build out of efficient natural gas combined-cycle plants, the capacity of which has doubled in PJM since 2013.
Read More ›Tags: coal, generation, electricity, map, wholesale power
Corrected on June 14 to accurately reflect the current status of the Equitrans Midstream Corporation acquisition.
On June 11, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) authorized the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) to begin operations. MVP, 303 miles long, can move up to 2.0 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of natural gas from Wetzel County, West Virginia, to an interconnection with Transcontinental Gas Pipeline’s (Transco) compressor station 165 in Pittsylvania County, Virginia. Transco delivers natural gas through a 10,000-mile interstate transmission pipeline system extending from South Texas to New York.
Read More ›Tags: natural gas, pipelines, West Virginia, states, map
This summer—June through August—we expect that residential customers’ monthly electricity bills will average $173 in the United States, slightly higher than last summer’s average of $168. We expect that more electricity consumption, resulting from our assumption that summer temperatures will be warmer this year, will be partially offset by lower residential electricity prices in most areas of the country.
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