News wire — U.S. coal-fired power plants are expected to remain well stocked through the end of 2026, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Wednesday in its latest short-term energy outlook.
Power plants in the U.S. held about 124 million short tons of coal on-site at the end of June, the EIA estimated, enough to last roughly 93 days at a consumption rate of 1.3 million short tons per day.
The agency forecasts that days of burn – the estimated number of days a power plant can operate using its current stockpile – will range between 90 and 120 through the end of next year. That’s about a month’s worth of coal more than power plants had on site between 2019 and 2022.
“In our short-term forecast, we expect coal’s share of U.S. electricity generation to increase from 16% in 2024 to 17% in 2025 and then decrease to 15% in 2026,” the agency said.
Reporting by Anushree Mukherjee in Bengaluru Editing by Bernadette Baum – Reuters
