Despite recent supply reductions, global liquid fuels production to outpace demand

Despite relatively lower supply from a number of major crude oil-producing countries, including Saudi Arabia, Libya, Venezuela, and Canada, global liquid fuels production was forecast to exceed global consumption through 2020 in EIA’s February Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO). More »

Updated renewable portfolio standards will lead to more renewable electricity generation

As of the end of 2018, 29 states and the District of Columbia (DC) had renewable portfolio standards (RPS), polices that require electricity suppliers to supply a set share of their electricity from designated renewable resources or eligible technologies. Although no additional states have adopted an RPS policy since Vermont in 2015, Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts, California, and the District of Columbia extended their existing targets in 2018 or early 2019, continuing a trend in recent years across the United States. More »

Extreme cold in the Midwest led to high power demand and record natural gas demand

Extreme cold weather in the Midwest at the end of January led to high—but not record-setting—electricity load on Wednesday, January 30, 2019, the coldest day of the period, on the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) grid. However, consumption of natural gas, the main fuel used for heating in the region, reached estimated record levels on the same day. Natural gas and electricity prices were elevated but did not reach levels seen during previous cold weather events in recent years. More »

Regional variations in household lighting consumption driven by bulb choice and bulb count

U.S. households consumed an average of 1,105 kilowatthours (kWh) of electricity for lighting in 2015, or about 10% of electricity consumption in homes. Data from EIA’s latest Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) show that average lighting consumption varied geographically from a high of 1,333 kWh per home in the West North Central states of the Midwest to 911 kWh in the Pacific states along the West Coast. More »

EIA’s new Key Statistics and Indicators section highlights long-term state energy data

EIA recently released a new Key Statistics and Indicators section in the State Energy Data System (SEDS), EIA's comprehensive source for annual state energy statistics. The new section makes complete time-series data by state easier to access and provides state rankings tables for the most current year. Data in the Key Statistics and Indicators section cover energy consumption and production series from 1960 to 2016 and prices and expenditures series from 1970 to 2016. More »

New methanol plants expected to increase industrial natural gas use through 2020

New methanol plants under development in the United States are increasing natural gas consumption in the industrial sector. Methanol plants are among the most natural gas-intensive industrial end users and require natural gas both as a feedstock and for process heat. Three new plants expected to come online in 2019 and 2020 have a combined nameplate capacity of about 3.3 million metric tons per year (MMmt/y) and would increase total U.S. methanol capacity to 9.4 MMmt/y, or 25,600 metric tons per day (mt/d)—a 45% increase from the current U.S. capacity. More »