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US electricity from petroleum, 2001 to 2025

Electricity generated from petroleum in United States, in gigawatt hours per year, from the EIA. · updated Jul 2026

About this statistic

US electricity from petroleum stood at 19,260 in 2025, up 27.7% on the previous period.

United States generated 19,260 gigawatt hours of electricity from petroleum in 2025, up 27.7 percent on the year before. The window runs from 2001, when the figure was 124,880.

How it is measured

The series counts net generation, electricity actually delivered to the grid, from utility-scale plants of one megawatt and larger, across electric utilities, independent producers, and industrial generators. It is collected on the Energy Information Administration's Form EIA-923, the survey behind the Electric Power Monthly, reported as thousands of megawatt hours and shown here as gigawatt hours summed to years. Small-scale rooftop solar is estimated separately and is not included in series like this one.

What the curve shows

Generation data dates the energy transition more precisely than any announcement: what a grid actually runs on is here, year by year. This line is one of the decliners: from a peak of 124,880 GWh in 2001 to 19,260 now, a fall of 85 percent.

Frequently asked questions
Is this capacity or actual generation?
Actual net generation in gigawatt hours: electricity produced and sent to the grid, not nameplate capacity. A megawatt of solar capacity produces far fewer hours of output than a megawatt of nuclear.
Does this include rooftop solar?
No. The survey covers utility-scale plants of one megawatt and larger; the EIA estimates small-scale rooftop systems in a separate series.
Why sum monthly data to years?
Generation is strongly seasonal, and the annual total reads the structural trend cleanly over that cycle. The monthly rhythm is real but belongs to weather more than to the grid's direction.
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US electricity from petroleum — Kitegraph