EIA says it expects no significant changes in U.S. energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2024 from 2023. But CO2 emissions will decrease by almost 1 percent in 2025.
EIA forecasts CO2 emissions from natural gas rise by 1 percent in 2024, offsetting a similar decline in coal emissions. Petroleum emissions are unchanged as increasing jet fuel consumption offsets falling emissions from diesel fuel and gasoline.
EIA said CO2 emissions vary for some fuels seasonally as well as annually. One notable example is motor gasoline, which makes up about half of U.S. energy-related petroleum emissions. EIA does not expect annual emissions from motor gasoline to change significantly over the forecast.
EIA forecasts that consumption of electricity in the United States will increase by 3 percent in 2024 and by 2 percent in 2025. This growth reflects more demand for air conditioning based on the assumption of warmer temperatures in the forecast, along with more electricity use related to the expansion of data centers.
EIA expects that U.S. retail sales of electricity to residential end-use customers in 2024 will be 3 percent higher than 2023 as a result of more electricity use for air conditioning this summer and more heating demand in the winter months. Residential electricity sales grow by a further 2 percent in 2025.
EIA forecasts that retail sales of electricity to customers in the U.S. commercial and industrial sectors will each grow by about 3 percent in 2024, followed by a 1 percent increase in commercial electricity sales and a 4 percent increase in industrial sales in 2025.
EIA has revised its electricity consumption forecasts slightly upwards to reflect adjustments to its expectations of power demand from data center customers. In the May STEO, EIA had forecast U.S. commercial sector electricity sales to increase less than 2 percent in 2024 and decline slightly in 2025.
EIA expects that U.S. electricity generation will grow by 3 percent, or 130 billion kilowatthours (BkWh), in 2024 and by 1 percent, or 40 BkWh, in 2025. The largest source of increase in power generation is coming from renewable energy sources, with solar alone accounting for more than 70 percent of the increase in U.S. generation.
EIA expects that the U.S. electric power sector will use solar energy to produce 5 percent of all U.S. generation in 2024 and 7 percent in 2025, up from a generation share of 4 percent in 2023. Wind power’s contribution to generation growth is beginning to flatten.
Though EIA expects wind generation to increase by 5 percent in 2024 and 3 percent in 2025, because of growth in other generation sources, its share remains at 11 percent of total generation in both 2024 and 2025, similar to 2023.
EIA forecasts the natural gas share to fall to 41 percent in 2025 in response to growing generation from renewables and relatively little new natural gas-fired capacity coming online. The forecast share of generation from coal falls from 17 percent in 2023 to 16 percent this year and 15 percent in 2025, with 15 gigawatts of coalfired capacity set to be retired through the end of next year.
EIA says coal consumption by the electric power sector will total more than 380 million short tons (MMst) in 2024 and about 360 MMst in 2025.