California natural gas storage levels are much lower in the north than in the south
Working natural gas inventories at storage facilities operated by the two largest natural gas distributors in California-Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) in the north and Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas) in the south-totaled 100.6 billion cubic feet (Bcf) as of June 30, 2022, according to publicly available company data. Although total California inventories are 4% […]
Small-scale solar is changing hourly utility electricity demand in New England
An increase in electricity generation from small-scale, customer-sited photovoltaic (PV) solar in New England is changing the hourly pattern of metered electricity demand during the spring (March–May), which you can see in our Hourly Electric Grid Monitor. Small-scale solar PV are systems with less than 1 megawatt (MW) of generating capacity and are typically not […]
Extending investment tax credits through 2050 increases U.S. solar generation by 10%
Extending investment tax credits (ITC) and production tax credits (PTC) through 2050 for renewable electricity generation increases annual U.S. solar generation by 10%, according to our alternative policy analysis, Annual Energy Outlook 2022: Extended and Sunset Tax Credit Cases. Long-term availability of federal tax credits provides an incentive for more small-scale distributed generation in homes […]
Battery systems on the U.S. power grid are increasingly used to respond to price
According to the early release of our Annual Electric Generator Report, the capacity of utility-scale battery storage more than tripled in the United States during 2021, from 1.4 gigawatts (GW) at the end of 2020 to 4.6 GW. The survey asked respondents how they use batteries, and respondents could cite more than one application for […]
U.S. uranium concentrate production in 2021 remained near all-time lows
By most measures, production of uranium concentrate (U3O8) remained at or near all-time lows in the United States during 2021, at 21,000 pounds, which is less than 1% of the post-2000 production high of 4.9 million pounds U3O8 in 2014. As domestic production has declined, an increasing amount of the uranium purchased for use in […]
The United States became the world’s largest LNG exporter in the first half of 2022
The United States became the world’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter during the first half of 2022, according to data from CEDIGAZ. Compared with the second half of 2021, U.S. LNG exports increased by 12% in the first half of 2022, averaging 11.2 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d). U.S. LNG exports continued to […]
Public U.S. oil producers saw higher revenues and higher operational costs during Q1 2022
In the first quarter of 2022, 53 U.S. exploration and production companies reported both higher revenues and higher material and labor costs compared with the first quarter of 2021.
Energy use fell during 2020 in all U.S. states except Alaska
In 2020, energy consumption declined by a record 7.5% in the United States, mostly as a result of pandemic effects and relatively warmer weather. Data from our State Energy Data System (SEDS) show that declines in energy consumption varied significantly by state. The states that had the largest declines tended to have significantly less energy […]
U.S. refined coal production and consumption declines with the expiration of a tax credit
Refined coal production in the United States dropped to nearly zero during the first quarter of 2022 as refined coal consumers used their remaining small stockpiles. Refined coal is most commonly made by mixing proprietary additives to feedstock coal. At the end of 2021, the refined coal production tax credit (created by the American Jobs […]
U.S. natural gas supply and demand balance shifts amid outage at Freeport LNG
A fire at Freeport LNG’s natural gas liquefaction plant led to the full shutdown of the facility on June 8. The shutdown reduced U.S. export capacity by an estimated 2.0 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), and as a result, the U.S. benchmark Henry Hub natural gas spot price fell by $1.27 per million British […]