Electricity

• For the summer cooling season (June–August), EIA forecasts that the average U.S. household will spend $426 on electricity bills, which would be an increase of more than 3% from last summer. EIA forecasts average household electricity use will be 1% higher this summer compared with last summer, based on a forecast of slightly warmer temperatures, and that retail electricity prices will be 2% higher than last summer.

• EIA expects the share of U.S. total utility-scale electricity generation from natural gas-fired power plants to rise from 32% in 2017 to 34% in 2018 and to remain at 34% in 2019. The forecast electricity generation share from coal averages 29% in both 2018 and 2019, down from 30% in 2017. The nuclear share of generation was 20% in 2017 and is forecast to average 20% in 2018 and 19% in 2019. Nonhydropower renewables provided slightly less than 10% of electricity generation in 2017 and are expected to provide 10% in 2018 and nearly 11% in 2019. The generation share of hydropower was about 7% in 2017 and is forecast to fall to less than 7% in both 2018 and 2019.

• In 2017 EIA estimates that wind generated an average of 697,000 megawatthours per day (MWh/d). EIA projects that will rise to 735,000 MWh/d in 2018 and to 779,000 MWh/d in 2019. If factors such as precipitation and snowpack remain as forecast, conventional hydropower is projected to generate 732,000 MWh/d in 2019, making it the first year that wind generation would exceed hydropower generation in the United States.