Why fewer U.S. power plants come online in their planned month: mostly not the solar and battery boom
EIA's monthly generator inventory, EIA-860M, lists each planned generator with the month it is due to start. Of the generators listed as planned for the next month, the share listed as operating in that month fell from 0.469 in 2016-2019 to 0.349 in 2022-2025. One easy reading: the mix changed, and solar and batteries were always late more often. Before checking, I fixed four predictions and a…
The U.S. power industry saw a decrease in planned generators operating in their designated months, primarily due to the delay of solar and battery installations, according to the EIA-860M. This trend has worsened from 2016-2019 to 2022-2025, with solar and batteries experiencing more frequent delays. While solar generation saw a decline from 0.506 to 0.354, battery generation decreased from 0.442 to 0.299.
Even though solar's share dropped significantly, the overall shift in the mix of technologies explained only about 20% of the decrease. The rise in natural gas generation, from 0.401 to 0.455, accounted for around a fifth of the decline. One gas-fired plant, with twelve combustion turbines, repeatedly planned for the next month between June 2016 and July 2018, contributed to this rise.
When this plant is excluded, gas generation remains flat. The EIA reported in November 2025 that solar delays were falling and typically lasted a month or two. However, the lowest year in this series for solar was January to September 2026, at 0.290. The findings are available on GitHub.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
