United States to add 7,775 ME of electricity-generating capacity through combined-cycle natural gas turbines this year
According to the latest Monthly Electric Generator Inventory from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the United States is set to add eight natural gas-fired combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power plants this year, amounting to 7,775 MW of new capacity.
With this growth, the industry has reversed four years of decline in CCGT plant start-ups and will push affiliated electric-generating capacity to nearly 290 GW by 2023. At that point, they would account for 24 percent of domestic generating capacity and maintain their place as the single largest source of both electric-generating capacity and generation.
Approximately half of these plants, which utilize both a natural gas and a steam turbine, have been in operation for two decades or more, though – they entered service between 2000 and 2006. Although there have been annual additions of CCGT capacity since the records to beat were set back in 2002 and 2003.
The latest attempts to reverse that trend have largely been built in either the upper Midwest or Florida, with seven of the eight new plants built in these regions to address rising energy demands and replace retiring coal-fired plants. In Florida, for example, this amounts to 2,222 MW of new CCGT capacity, and all of it will replace 1,486 MW of coal-fired capacity retiring later this year.
In 2023, the EIA further predicted that five new plants will add 4,215 MW of additional CCGT capacity.
