Power Industry Research

May 18, 2007 8:12 AM

How do I find out how many domestic Combined Cycle power plants there are?

While I want to know the total I would also like to know the number added each year, for the last 10 years, and how many were decommissioned. I'm only interested in 50 MW and up.

I've been to the Department of Energy website and looked around but I haven't found it. There are spreadsheets available that show power output by month so I've got an idea of how many there are but it doesn't help me find out when they came on line or when they were decommissioned.

Are there any free public databases that hold this information? How about journals or blogs that track the energy industry? Whenever I search along these lines my results are always about the nuclear industry.

Any ideas?

posted by BigSky to technology (6 comments total)

Did you check the FERC website?
posted by footnote at 8:51 AM on May 18, 2007

There's some stuff here: EIA Inventory of Electric Utility Power Plants in the United States , but that pdf broke my browser for like 5 minutes, so I don't have any more poke around time.

You can also do government searches here.
posted by cashman at 9:18 AM on May 18, 2007

elibrary @ ferc

i don't think you're going to find a QaD answer to your question, but elibrary is the place to go for info on all things power-grid related.

you may also want to check with utility watchdog groups, but again, you're asking a pretty specific question.

DoE is a different kind of energy.
posted by markovitch at 10:36 AM on May 18, 2007

advise from some experts:

EIA

and check out FERC form 1 and 714.

it appears I spoke a lil soon about DoE not being helpful.
posted by markovitch at 10:56 AM on May 18, 2007

Thanks to all of you for your responses. I was getting lost in the FERC library, but I'm sure you can find the information if you have the patience. Unbelievable that their document viewer doesn't have a search function?!

markovitch,

I'm glad I clicked the link. I have spent quite a bit of time on the DOE website and that page in particular, but it wasn't until just now that I noticed the link for the Existing Electric Generating Units 2005 spreadsheet. A 2006 update would be nice and decommissioning information but I'll get along. Just finding out when they went online is a good step for now.

Thank you.
posted by BigSky at 11:17 AM on May 18, 2007

Yeah, the FERC library site is confusing, to say the least.
posted by footnote at 12:52 PM on May 18, 2007