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