Independent Power Producers & Energy Traders Data: Nodal Price Tapes, Generator Censuses and Federal Electricity Statistics · Head-to-head
EIA Form EIA-860 vs EIA Electric Power Annual
Which independent power producers & energy traders data: nodal price tapes, generator censuses and federal electricity statistics data fits your job: EIA Form EIA-860 — Annual Electric Generator Inventory, or EIA Electric Power Annual. API, files, or your warehouse. Daily, weekly, or hourly.
EIA Form EIA-860 — Annual Electric Generator Inventory
EIA Electric Power Annual
Where the fields line up
No shared field names. These two answer different questions.
| Field | EIA Form EIA-860 — Annual Electric Generator Inventory | EIA Electric Power Annual |
|---|---|---|
Utility ID / Utility Name | Identifier and name of the reporting utility or operator entity behind each plant and generator. | not in this set |
Plant Code / Plant Name | Plant identifier and name; the Plant Code joins every 860 sheet together and reaches into the companion generation and fuel datasets. | not in this set |
State / County / Latitude / Longitude | Physical location of the plant, carried with NERC region and balancing authority on the plant sheet - the basis for any geospatial view of the fleet. | not in this set |
Generator ID | Unit-level identifier within a plant, assigned by the operator and standardized across the survey. | not in this set |
Technology / Prime Mover | Generation technology category paired with prime mover code: ST steam turbine, CT combustion turbine, CA combined cycle, IC internal combustion, HY hydro, WT wind turbine, PV photovoltaic, BA battery. | not in this set |
Ownership | Ownership relationship of the reported unit: single owner, jointly owned, and operator distinctions feeding the dedicated owner sheet. | not in this set |
Nameplate / Summer / Winter Capacity (MW) | Manufacturer nameplate rating plus seasonal net capability and minimum load for each unit, with uprate and derate history. | not in this set |
Status | Operating status code driving tab placement: operating, standby, out of service, under construction, planned new - separating the live fleet from the pipeline and the retirements. | not in this set |
Operating Year / Operating Month | When the generator entered commercial operation, plus planned retirement date where reported. | not in this set |
Energy Source 1 through 6 | Primary and secondary fuels consumed by the unit - natural gas, bituminous coal, solar, wind, biomass, distillate oil and more - with startup sources and switching flags. | not in this set |
RTO/ISO LMP Node Designation | Market node designation used for FERC wholesale reporting - the hook that ties a physical generator to ISO pricing geography. | not in this set |
Carbon Capture flag | Whether the unit reports carbon capture technology installed, alongside gasification, fluidized bed and supercritical technology flags. | not in this set |
Coverage, side by side
| EIA Form EIA-860 — Annual Electric Generator Inventory | EIA Electric Power Annual | |
|---|---|---|
| Geographic | All US states and territories, geocoded to county and latitude/longitude with NERC region and balancing authority | National totals, all states and census divisions, plus Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands and Virgin Islands |
| Temporal | Annual files 2001 through the 2025 early release; superseded forms reach 1990; monthly interim inventories since July 2015 | Editions archived back to 1994; current edition pairs 2024 with 2023 |
| Granularity | One row per generator (Operable / Proposed / Retired-and-Canceled tabs, 73 columns per unit), joined to plant, utility and owner levels | One value per cell of sector, fuel, technology, geography and year, precomputed |
What each contains
They tie on 1 attribute. Pick by fit, not by loyalty.
| EIA Form EIA-860 — Annual Electric Generator Inventory | EIA Electric Power Annual | |
|---|---|---|
| Publisher | U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) | U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) |
| Core content | Generator-level census of every US power plant at 1 MW+ nameplate, with plant, utility, owner, wind/solar/storage/multifuel and environmental-equipment sheets | ~130 statistical tables across twelve sections summarizing the US electric power industry |
| Unit of analysis | One row per generator (Operable / Proposed / Retired-and-Canceled tabs, 73 columns per unit), joined to plant, utility and owner levels | One value per cell of sector, fuel, technology, geography and year, precomputed |
| Documented fields | 12 column groups, verified during research | 7 column groups, verified during research |
| Geographic coverage | All US states and territories, geocoded to county and latitude/longitude with NERC region and balancing authority | National totals, all states and census divisions, plus Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands and Virgin Islands |
| Time coverage | Annual files 2001 through the 2025 early release; superseded forms reach 1990; monthly interim inventories since July 2015 | Editions archived back to 1994; current edition pairs 2024 with 2023 |
| Best for | Fleet modeling, IPP ownership attribution, market-node joins, proposed-vs-retired tracking | Quotable industry aggregates: generation, prices, fuel costs, emissions, reliability |
What each does better
EIA Form EIA-860
Unit-level truth. One live row reads: utility 63560 Sand Point Generating, LLC, plant 1 Sand Point, Aleutians East County, Alaska, generator 2, Petroleum Liquids / IC internal combustion, 0.9 MW nameplate against 0.3 MW summer capability, status OP, operating since 1976. Every plant in the country above 1 MW gets that treatment - tens of thousands of rows in the Operable sheet alone - so a fleet model starts from named machines rather than regional averages.
Attribution the aggregates cannot give back. The Owner sheet records operator shares for jointly owned and non-operator-owned units, which is precisely how plants get credited to IPP developers rather than incumbent utilities; the Proposed tab shows what is being built before it synchronizes; the Retired-and-Canceled tab timestamps what has left the stack.
Market hooks built into the rows. Balancing authority codes and RTO/ISO LMP node designations sit beside each generator, so capacity positions can be mapped onto the pricing nodes they actually settle at. The trade-off is deliberate: none of this tells you what the units generated, sold for or emitted - 860 describes the machine, not its year.
the EIA Electric Power Annual
Precomputed answers. Where 860 hands you tens of thousands of unit rows and an aggregation job, the Annual hands you Table 1.1: 2024 versus 2023 net generation by fuel with percentage change split between all sectors and the electric power sector alone - coal down 3.4 percent, petroleum liquids up 0.5 percent - readable without writing a line of code.
None of these exist anywhere in Form EIA-860.
Three decades of published continuity. Editions archived to 1994 mean a trend table can be quoted straight from the source rather than reconstructed. The trade-off mirrors 860's: the moment you ask which units, whose ownership stake, or where exactly, the Annual shrugs and points at its companion forms.
Where they're equivalent
More than their altitudes suggest. Both come from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, both dictionaries were verified during research, and both score at the top of Datadory's catalog (10/10 against 9/10, with the slice averaging 9.17). They describe the same physical universe - the Annual is compiled primarily from Form EIA-860, EIA-923 and EIA-861 collections - so their totals should reconcile when you aggregate correctly. Neither pretends otherwise - the Annual's own granularity note says generator and plant detail resides in companion Form 860 and 923 collections. Which is exactly why pairing them works.
The verdict
Verdict: sample both, pick by fit - one is a registry, the other a report card.
Take EIA Form EIA-860 — Annual Electric Generator Inventory if your question names a machine or an owner. Fleet composition by technology and prime mover, IPP ownership attribution through jointly owned shares, siting studies off county-level coordinates, proposed-versus-retired capacity balances, mapping generators to ISO pricing nodes, screening the installed base for carbon capture or cofiring readiness - anything answered by what exists and who owns it. Accept its frame: no output, no revenue, no emission columns.
Accept its frame: precomputed cells, no unit identity beneath them.
Three quick tests settle most cases. Need to attribute a plant to a developer? Only 860 carries the owner sheet. Only the Annual computes those. Need to explain why last year's aggregate moved? That is the both-of-them case, and in power markets it comes up constantly.
Sample both, pick by fit. See EIA Form EIA-860 — Annual Electric Generator Inventory · See EIA Electric Power Annual
Or take both in one feed
Yes - they form a census-to-compendium chain that neither completes alone. Model on the 860 side: which technologies, owners and states hold the capacity, what is proposed against what retired. Benchmark on the Annual side: what those same fuel-sector cells generated, earned and emitted nationwide, and whether the fleet you modeled explains the movement in Table 1.1.
Two alignments decide whether the merge holds. First, keys: the Annual aggregates by sector, fuel and geography, so collapse 860's per-unit capacities to fuel-by-sector-by-state cells for the matching reference year and reconcile through the shared sector vocabulary - electric utilities, IPPs/nonregulated, commercial, industrial. Second, cadence: 860 lands an early release around mid-year ahead of the final cycle, while the Annual publishes once a year on its own schedule, so pin both to the same reference year before comparing - a 2025 fleet against a 2024 compendium will disagree for reasons that are timing, not substance. Inside 860 itself, the Plant Code is the join key across the generator, owner and environmental-equipment sheets, and it links onward to the companion 923 fuel-consumption collection when volumes enter the question.
Browse the rest of the shelf at the independent power producers & energy traders hub, see how the slice ranks in the best independent power producers energy traders datasets list, start from the nameplate capacity definition, or read the data guide.
Datadory normalizes each record to its documented dictionary before anything ships, on one cadence - daily, weekly, or hourly - your call. Or take both in one feed.
API, files, or your warehouse. Daily, weekly, or hourly.
Fair questions
Is EIA Form EIA-860 better than the EIA Electric Power Annual?
Better at different jobs. Form EIA-860 wins on granularity: every US generator above 1 MW nameplate as its own row, 73 columns per unit on the Operable tab, owner shares from the Owner sheet and RTO/ISO market-node designations, scoring 10/10 on Datadory's rubric. One is a census you model on; the other is a compendium you quote.
Do Form EIA-860 and the Electric Power Annual cover the same ground?
They share a universe but not a unit of analysis. Both describe the same US power fleet above 1 MW, and the Annual is compiled largely from Form EIA-860, EIA-923 and EIA-861 collections. But 860 carries one row per generator joined to plant, utility and owner levels with county coordinates and balancing authority codes, while the Annual aggregates to sector, fuel, technology, state and census division. The Annual's own record notes that generator and plant detail resides in companion Form 860 and 923 collections rather than in its tables.
Can I join the two datasets together?
Yes, through shared dimensions rather than a direct key. Aggregate Form EIA-860's per-unit nameplate and seasonal capacities up to fuel-by-sector-by-state cells, then align them with the Annual's capability and net-generation tables for the matching year; the sector vocabulary - electric utilities, independent power producers, commercial, industrial - exists on both sides. For tracing an Annual figure back to specific units, use Plant Code joins inside Form EIA-860 itself, where one code links the generator, owner and environmental-equipment sheets.
Which dataset covers more history?
The Electric Power Annual runs deeper as a continuous series: editions archived to 1994, with two-volume editions covering 1994-2000 and consolidated editions from 2001 onward. Form EIA-860 ships modern annual files for 2001 through the 2025 early release, superseded Forms 860A and 860B extending the utility and non-utility series back to 1990, plus monthly interim inventories layered on since July 2015. Roughly three decades either way - published reports on one side, unit-level files on the other.
Can Datadory deliver both datasets together?
Yes - alone or merged onto one calendar, delivered daily, weekly, or hourly, your call. Each arrives normalized to its documented field dictionary (12 documented column groups on the Form EIA-860 side, 7 on the Electric Power Annual side), with sample rows before any commitment and no long contract required. Or take both in one feed.