EIA Data Show U.S. Power Grids Dodged a Bullet With The 2024 Presidential Election

The previous administration's energy policies were destroying the US power grids.

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) report, “Today in Energy,” dated June 11, 2025, highlighted a startling fact: the anti-natural gas policies of the Biden administration were destroying US power grids by halting the construction of new natural gas generation facilities. Particularly egregious were the Greenhouse Gas Standards and Guidelines for Fossil Fuel-Fired Power Plants, implemented in May 2024, that required new baseload gas-fired plants to control 90% of their carbon dioxide emissions starting in 2032. The assumption was that this would be through carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology. However, since CCS is not currently commercially viable, these rules effectively made the construction of new baseload natural gas generation uneconomic.

EIA recognized that the reason for the decline in new natural gas generation was the previous administration’s bias against natural gas and for wind and solar:

Although electricity generators fueled by natural gas have provided more electricity in the United States than any other source since 2016, hardly any new natural gas capacity came online last year. The recent decline in CCGT [combined-cycle gas turbine] capacity additions can be partly attributed to a shift to bring more renewable capacity online, mainly solar and wind.

Luckily, the 2024 presidential election halted the Biden administration’s disastrous energy policies.

The change in the trajectory of new natural gas generation is stark. Only one industrial sector combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power generator came online in 2024. Now, an additional 18.7 GW of CCGT capacity is expected to come online by 2028:

Developers plan to add 1.6 GW of CCGT in 2025, according to EIA’s latest Preliminary Monthly Electric Generator Inventory. More than half of the 3.3 GW of capacity that developers expect to bring online in 2026 is already under construction. Most of the 3.3 GW capacity that developers plan to bring online in 2027 is not yet under construction. Another 10.6 GW is planned to be added in 2028.

If realized, that would be the most CCGT capacity coming online in any year since 2018. These numbers are likely to increase under the energy policies of the Trump Administration.

My Take

There is no question that the election of President Trump came just in time for the US to avoid a catastrophe in its power grids. With the rapid development of AI and other power-hungry industries such as chip manufacturing, significant challenges remain. At least we are now headed in the right direction.

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