================================================================================ EIA Operating Generator Capacity — Sample Rows + Narrative Generated 2026-05-16 from public.energy_eia_operating_generator_capacity_flat ================================================================================ WHAT THIS DATA IS ----------------- This table is a flat, queryable view of EIA's "operating-generator-capacity" endpoint (https://api.eia.gov/v2/electricity/operating-generator-capacity/). The underlying source is Form EIA-860, which inventories every electric generator in the United States that is reported as operating (or recently operating) by its owner. Each row represents one generator's reported status in one month. A single power plant typically has multiple generators, so a plant like Plant Barry in Alabama appears as several rows per month — one for each generator unit (generator_id 1, 2, 3, ...). The same generator reappears every month it remains in the inventory, so the table is a time series of (plant × generator × month) records. WHAT IT TELLS US ---------------- For each generator, in each reporting month: - Where it is (state, balancing authority, exact latitude/longitude) - Who owns or operates it (entity_id, entity_name) - What fuel/energy source it uses (energy_source_code + descriptive name) - How it generates electricity (prime_mover_code, e.g. ST=steam turbine, HY=hydro, IC=internal combustion, WT=wind turbine) - Its current operating status (status code, see below) - What sector it serves (utility, IPP, industrial, commercial, etc.) What it does NOT tell us is how much electricity the generator actually produces in that month — that data comes from a separate EIA endpoint ("facility-fuel", Form EIA-923), captured in a sibling table. STATUS CODES IN THIS TABLE -------------------------- OP Operating 4,229,083 rows SB Standby / backup 339,057 rows OS Out of service 99,816 rows OA Out of service (annual) 28,769 rows SUMMARY STATISTICS ------------------ Total rows: 4,696,725 Distinct generators (by plant_id × generator_id): ~75k Distinct plants (plant_id): 15,791 Distinct states/territories: 51 Distinct months covered: 218 Period range: 2008-01 → 2026-02 Rows with lat/lon geometry: 4,685,500 (99.76%) Distinct fuel codes: 38 TOP 10 FUELS BY ROW COUNT ------------------------- Natural Gas 1,301,782 Water (hydro) 908,741 Distillate Fuel Oil* 767,207 Solar 624,113 Landfill Gas 317,709 Wind 245,214 Bituminous Coal 108,352 Subbituminous Coal 75,587 Electricity used for energy storage 43,833 Geothermal 41,066 * EIA stores this as "Disillate Fuel Oil" (sic). The misspelling is in EIA's source data, not introduced by ingest. Preserved verbatim. FIRST 5 ROWS (earliest period, ordered by plant_id) --------------------------------------------------- period | plant_id | plant_name | state | entity_name | gen_id | status | fuel | pm | latitude | longitude ---------+----------+--------------+-------+------------------+--------+--------+------------------+----+-----------+----------- 2008-01 | 2 | Bankhead Dam | AL | Alabama Power Co | 1 | OP | Water | HY | 33.218889 | -87.579722 2008-01 | 3 | Barry | AL | Alabama Power Co | 1 | OP | Bituminous Coal | ST | 31.004167 | -88.013889 2008-01 | 3 | Barry | AL | Alabama Power Co | 2 | OP | Bituminous Coal | ST | 31.004167 | -88.013889 2008-01 | 3 | Barry | AL | Alabama Power Co | 3 | OP | Bituminous Coal | ST | 31.004167 | -88.013889 2008-01 | 3 | Barry | AL | Alabama Power Co | 4 | OP | Bituminous Coal | ST | 31.004167 | -88.013889 (Both plants are in Alabama; Bankhead Dam is a hydro facility on the Black Warrior River, Plant Barry is a coal-fired steam plant near Mobile. Both were operating in January 2008.) LAST 5 ROWS (latest period, ordered by plant_id) ------------------------------------------------ period | plant_id | plant_name | state | entity_name | gen_id | status | fuel | pm | latitude | longitude ---------+----------+------------+-------+----------------------------+--------+--------+---------------------+----+-----------+------------- 2026-02 | 1 | Sand Point | AK | Sand Point Generating, LLC | 1 | SB | Disillate Fuel Oil | IC | 55.339722 | -160.497222 2026-02 | 1 | Sand Point | AK | Sand Point Generating, LLC | 2 | OP | Disillate Fuel Oil | IC | 55.339722 | -160.497222 2026-02 | 1 | Sand Point | AK | Sand Point Generating, LLC | 3 | OP | Disillate Fuel Oil | IC | 55.339722 | -160.497222 2026-02 | 1 | Sand Point | AK | Sand Point Generating, LLC | 5.1 | OP | Disillate Fuel Oil | IC | 55.339722 | -160.497222 2026-02 | 1 | Sand Point | AK | Sand Point Generating, LLC | WT1 | OS | Wind | WT | 55.339722 | -160.497222 (Sand Point is a small remote-Alaska community station with five generators: four diesel internal-combustion units and one wind turbine. The wind turbine is currently out of service.) KNOWN DATA-QUALITY QUIRKS IN EIA'S SOURCE DATA ---------------------------------------------- - Historical longitude sign bug (FIXED at ingest time, 2026-05-16). For reporting periods 2008-01 through 2010-11, EIA stored lower-48 longitudes as positive numbers (Bankhead Dam was +87.579722 instead of -87.579722). EIA cleaned this up in their own data starting 2010-12, but the historical periods still had the bug. The flat table's build step now applies: CASE WHEN longitude > 0 AND state_id <> 'AK' THEN -longitude ELSE longitude END and rebuilds geom from the corrected coordinates. Alaska is excluded because some Aleutian plants (~11k bug-era rows) are legitimately east of the dateline with positive longitudes. Affected non-AK rows fixed: 403,558. After the fix, every plant in the table is at a geographically plausible US location. - Fuel description "Disillate Fuel Oil" (missing 't', should be "Distillate") — EIA's spelling, preserved as-is in energy_source_desc. REFRESH CADENCE --------------- A systemd user timer rebuilds this table every Monday at 03:30 local time via ~/.local/bin/ingest-eia-energy-layers-weekly. The ingest fetches the full dataset per month (Jan 2008 → current) and rebuilds the flat table from scratch each run. JOIN KEY FOR DOWNSTREAM ANALYSIS -------------------------------- plant_id (text) joins to the forthcoming energy_eia_facility_fuel_flat table (Form EIA-923), which provides monthly net + gross generation in MWh for the same plants. Together, the two tables answer: - WHERE energy is generated (this table, with lat/lon) - WHAT is generated and by whom (this table, with fuel + entity) - HOW MUCH is generated each month (facility_fuel_flat, in MWh)