LEARN / REINDUSTRIALIZATION
Why Supply Is Not Keeping Pace
Capacity is being added at pace and retirements are being postponed, and thirteen of twenty-three assessment areas still face elevated or high resource adequacy risk. The shortfall sits in megawatts that can be counted on during the hours that determine whether the lights stay on, which is a smaller number than the megawatts installed and moves differently.
Key points
- Developers added roughly 53 GW of new utility-scale generating capacity in 2025.
- Operators planned to retire 12.3 GW that year and retired about 4.6 GW, the least since 2008.
- NERC nonetheless reports 13 of 23 assessment areas at elevated or high risk over the next ten years.
- Existing capacity from fossil-fired generators fell 21 GW between 2024 and 2025, while battery, wind and solar added 23 GW of capacity at peak hours.
- Nameplate additions and accredited additions are different quantities, and only the second closes a reserve margin.
Supply is being added
The common account has supply stalling while demand accelerates. The first half of that is not what the data shows. Developers added roughly 53 GW of new utility-scale generating capacity in 2025, and retirements slowed sharply rather than continuing on schedule.
Data12.3 GW planned → 4.6 GW retired
Capacity operators planned to retire in 2025 against what was actually retired, the least since 2008. Two-thirds of the planned retirements were coal-fired. Retirements were delayed under demand pressure and following Department of Energy emergency orders extending operation of several coal plants, and EIA expects delays to continue in 2026. EIA data reported through a secondary compilation.
Series and provenance
- Agency
- U.S. Energy Information Administration
- Program
- Preliminary Monthly Electric Generator Inventory
- Series
- Planned against actual generating capacity retirements
- Measure
- U.S. generating capacity retirements and additions
- Units
- Gigawatts
- Adjustment
- Utility-scale
- Period
- Calendar year 2025
- Latest
- About 12.3 GW planned for retirement, roughly 4.6 GW retired, the least since 2008; about 53 GW of new utility-scale capacity added
- Source tier
- Agency data retrieved through a secondary compilation rather than the EIA release
- Retrieved
- August 9, 2026
The Institute has not read the underlying EIA generator inventory directly, and these figures are marked at lower confidence than a figure taken from an agency release. Retirements were delayed under demand pressure and following Department of Energy emergency orders extending operation of several coal plants.
Both facts cut against a simple scarcity story. Capacity is being built and the existing fleet is being held open longer than planned. Yet NERC still reports that thirteen of twenty-three assessment areas face elevated or high resource adequacy risk within ten years, with planned additions failing to keep pace with demand growth and confirmed retirements.
Why the additions do not close the gap
The resolution sits in what kind of capacity is being added and how much of it counts. NERC reports that existing capacity from fossil-fired generators fell by 21 GW between 2024 and 2025, while battery, wind and solar contributed 23 GW of capacity at peak hours. Those two figures nearly offset, which is the point: a large volume of nameplate additions produced a small net change in what the system can count on when stressed.
Accreditation is the mechanism. A resource is credited toward meeting demand according to what it delivers in the hours that determine reliability, not according to its rating. Where a fleet is shifting from resources that hold fuel on site to resources whose output depends on conditions, nameplate additions can exceed retirements while accredited capacity falls.
Measurement noteThree different quantities appear in coverage of this question and are frequently interchanged: nameplate capacity added, accredited capacity added, and energy generated. A year with record nameplate additions, falling accredited capacity and rising generation is internally consistent and describes a system getting less reliable while producing more electricity.
Retirement delay is a symptom
Holding coal and gas units open past their planned retirement dates buys time and does not add capability. The units are old, their availability declines, and the maintenance and fuel arrangements supporting them were planned around an exit date that has moved. Emergency orders extending operation are a signal that the planned replacement did not arrive on schedule.
Institute analysisA slowdown in retirements reads as good news for reserve margins and as a warning about the replacement pipeline. The useful question is not whether the fleet shrank but whether the capacity that was supposed to substitute for the retiring units is built, accredited and connected. Where retirement dates keep moving, the answer is usually that it is not.
The connection constraint
More than 2,060 GW of generation and storage was awaiting transmission interconnection at the end of 2025, with a median of over five years from request to operation and a historical completion rate near 13 percent. Capacity that cannot connect does not serve load, which means the queue is part of the supply story rather than separate from it.
The practical consequence for an industrial site is that regional adequacy depends on projects whose completion is individually unlikely and collectively uncertain. A reserve margin forecast several years out embeds assumptions about which queued projects energise, and those assumptions are rarely visible to a firm reading the headline number.
Common misconceptions
That capacity additions have stopped. Roughly 53 GW was added in 2025 and retirements slowed to their lowest level since 2008. The constraint is composition and accreditation rather than volume.
That delaying retirements solves the problem. It postpones it using assets whose availability is declining, and it signals that planned replacements have not arrived.
That a reserve margin forecast is a measurement. It embeds assumptions about which queued projects will energise, and completion rates for queued generation are historically near 13 percent.
What the evidence says, and where it is contested
ContestedWhat would actually close the gap is disputed. One position holds the binding constraint is firm dispatchable capacity, and that until more of it is built, additions of weather-dependent resources will keep producing large nameplate numbers and small accredited ones. A second holds the binding constraint is interconnection and transmission, that ample capacity is already contracted and waiting in queues, and that accelerating connection would close the margin faster than new firm generation could be permitted and built. The two point to different policies, and both are consistent with the same reliability assessments.
Related Institute research
The Generation Mix
Why capacity share and generation share differ.
Firm Power and Why It Matters
How accreditation converts nameplate into countable capacity.
Why Electricity Demand Is Growing Again
The demand side of the same question.
Sources
- North American Electric Reliability Corporation, 2025 Long-Term Reliability Assessment. nerc.com
- U.S. Energy Information Administration, Short-Term Energy Outlook. eia.gov
- U.S. Energy Information Administration, Electricity generation, capacity, and sales in the United States. eia.gov
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Queued Up: 2026 Edition. emp.lbl.gov
- U.S. Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Monthly. eia.gov
Reference entry maintained by the Institute for American Manufacturing & Technology. Figures are drawn from primary sources and cited above. Where the Institute states a position rather than a finding, it is marked as such.