Menu
Crude oil, gasoline, heating oil, diesel, propane, and other liquids including biofuels and natural gas liquids.
Exploration and reserves, storage, imports and exports, production, prices, sales.
Sales, revenue and prices, power plants, fuel use, stocks, generation, trade, demand & emissions.
Energy use in homes, commercial buildings, manufacturing, and transportation.
Reserves, production, prices, employment and productivity, distribution, stocks, imports and exports.
Includes hydropower, solar, wind, geothermal, biomass and ethanol.
Uranium fuel, nuclear reactors, generation, spent fuel.
Comprehensive data summaries, comparisons, analysis, and projections integrated across all energy sources.
Monthly and yearly energy forecasts, analysis of energy topics, financial analysis, congressional reports.
Financial market analysis and financial data for major energy companies.
Greenhouse gas data, voluntary reporting, electric power plant emissions.
Maps, tools, and resources related to energy disruptions and infrastructure.
State energy information, including overviews, rankings, data, and analyses.
Maps by energy source and topic, includes forecast maps.
International energy information, including overviews, rankings, data, and analyses.
Regional energy information including dashboards, maps, data, and analyses.
Tools to customize searches, view specific data sets, study detailed documentation, and access time-series data.
EIA's free and open data available as API, Excel add-in, bulk files, and widgets
Come test out some of the products still in development and let us know what you think!
EIA's open source code, available on GitHub.
Forms EIA uses to collect energy data including descriptions, links to survey instructions, and additional information.
Sign up for email subscriptions to receive messages about specific EIA products
Subscribe to feeds for updates on EIA products including Today in Energy and What's New.
Short, timely articles with graphics on energy, facts, issues, and trends.
Lesson plans, science fair experiments, field trips, teacher guide, and career corner.
EIA is continuing normal publication schedules and data collection until further notice.
California has become the first state with more than 5% of its annual utility-scale electricity generation from utility-scale solar power, according to EIA's Electric Power Monthly. California's utility-scale (1 megawatt (MW) or larger) solar plants generated a record 9.9 million megawatthours (MWh) of electricity in 2014, an increase of 6.1 million MWh from 2013. California's utility-scale solar production in 2014 was more than three times the output of the next-highest state, Arizona, and more than all other states combined.
Several large plants were phased into operation in California during 2014, including two 550 MW solar photovoltaic plants, Topaz and Desert Sunlight (Phases 1 and 2), as well as the 377 MW Ivanpah (Phases 1, 2, and 3) and the 250 MW Genesis solar thermal plants. In total, nearly 1,900 MW of new utility-scale solar capacity was added, bringing the state's utility-scale capacity for all solar technologies to 5,400 MW by the end of 2014.
California has promoted solar power through a series of state policies, including a renewable portfolio standard (RPS) that requires electricity providers to obtain 33% of the power they sell from eligible renewable sources by 2020. In 2014, the state obtained 22% of its electricity from nonhydropower renewables including wind, solar, and biomass.
California also created incentives, including rebates and net-metering policies, to encourage rooftop and other small-scale solar capacity, whose generation is not captured in the above figure. By the end of 2014, more than 2,300 MW of small-scale solar capacity was installed on homes and businesses, according to the California Public Utilities Commission.
The top three states in utility-scale solar generation in 2014 were California, Arizona, and Nevada. These states in the southwestern United States have some of the best solar resources in the world. However, states with less-favorable solar resources, such as New Jersey and Massachusetts, also are among the top 10 states in total solar generation. All of the top 10 states—with the exception of Florida—have a renewable portfolio standard in place. Most of those policies include a specific target for solar power or customer-sited generation.
The increase in California's solar production came the same year that drought conditions caused hydroelectric generation to fall 46% compared to the previous five-year average. Although solar is only available at certain times of the day, the annual increase in California's solar generation in 2014 offset 83% of the decrease in hydroelectric generation. Along with increases in generation from wind power and geothermal energy, solar power helped make California the top state producer of nonhydroelectric renewable electricity in 2014, narrowly topping Texas.
Principal contributor: Allen McFarland
Tags: California, electricity, generation, renewables, RPS (Renewable Portfolio Standards), solar, states
