How much of US electricity comes from coal?

Coal made 16.6% of US electricity in 2025, down from a peak of 56.9% in 1988 and 48.5% as late as 2007. Natural gas overtook it in 2016. Each point is coal's share of all net generation that year; the 2025 figures are preliminary.

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Key facts

Measure: Share of US electricity generation (%). Written from the data below.

  • The latest figure, for 2025, is 16.6%.
  • That is down 29.1 percentage points from 45.7% in 1949.
  • The highest was 56.9% in 1988.
  • The lowest was 15.1% in 2024.

This chart is one of the 50 in The U.S. in 50 charts, 2026, a yearly report of the key numbers on how the country is doing.

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Source and date

Source
U.S. Energy Information Administration, Monthly Energy Review (Table 7.2a)
License
Public domain (U.S. government work)
Data as of
Published

Citation

Chartly. “How much of US electricity comes from coal?” Chart. Data: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Monthly Energy Review (Table 7.2a), https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/ (data as of December 31, 2025). https://chart.ly/charts/coal-share-of-us-electricity (accessed November 4, 2026).

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The data

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The file has the numbers in this table, with the source, license and date. Please credit the source and Chartly. Developers can also get them as JSON (how).

Year Share of US electricity generation (%)
1949 45.7
1950 46.3
1951 49.3
1952 48.4
1953 49
1954 50.2
1955 54.8
1956 56.1
1957 54.6
1958 53.1
1959 53
1960 53.1
1961 52.9
1962 52.5
1963 53.7
1964 53.3
1965 53.9
1966 53.5
1967 51.8
1968 51.4
1969 48.8
1970 45.9
1971 44.1
1972 44
1973 45.5
1974 44.3
1975 44.4
1976 46.3
1977 46.3
1978 44.2
1979 47.8
1980 50.7
1981 52.4
1982 53.1
1983 54.4
1984 55.5
1985 56.7
1986 55.6
1987 56.8
1988 56.9
1989 53.4
1990 52.5
1991 51.7
1992 52.6
1993 52.9
1994 52.1
1995 51
1996 52.1
1997 52.8
1998 51.8
1999 50.9
2000 51.7
2001 51
2002 50.1
2003 50.8
2004 49.8
2005 49.6
2006 49
2007 48.5
2008 48.2
2009 44.4
2010 44.8
2011 42.3
2012 37.4
2013 38.9
2014 38.6
2015 33.2
2016 30.4
2017 29.9
2018 27.5
2019 23.4
2020 19.3
2021 21.9
2022 19.7
2023 16.1
2024 15.1
2025 16.6

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