beecycles/climatecentralpeakersbatteries

Data and code for a journalism project with Climate Central on peaker power plants and battery storage

ClimateCentralPeakersBatteries

Data and code for a journalism project with Climate Central on peaker power plants and battery storage

Description of files:

Data from EIA used to create peaker summaries:

EIA923_2018.csv = The first tab of the EIA923_Schedules_2_3_4_5_M_12_2018_Final_Revision.xlsx file from https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/eia923/
EIA923_2018_Page4GeneratorData.csv = The page 4 tab from the EIA923_Schedules_2_3_4_5_M_12_2018_Final_Revision.xlsx file from https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/eia923/. This tab has generator-level data for Net Generation
eia860_3_1_2018.csv = The first tab of the 3_1_Generator_Y2018.xlsx file from https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/eia860/

Code files:

PeakersBatteries_generators.R = code to join 2018 data for net generation and nameplate capacity at the generator level (only reported for a subset of plants, so this data/code does not include all possible peakers). See generators_peakers5_formatted.csv for a formatted version of the database listing all generators with a capacity factor less than 5%.
PeakersBatteries_plants.r = code to join 2018 data for net generation and nameplate capacity for ALL PLANTS, which means first summarizing the nameplate capacity and net generation values per plant before calculating capacity factor. This data/code includes all plants that report data to the EIA but does not include any detail at the generator level. See allplants_peakers5_formatted.csv for a formatted version of this database listing all plants with a capacity factor less than 5%.

Created data:

generators.csv = database created using the PeakersBatteries_generators.R code above that shows the combined data for all generators listed in the EIA database (this is optional for plants to report and so this database only contains a subset of all power plants that report to EIA).
generators_peakers5_formatted.xlsx = formatted database listing all (reported) generators with a capacity factor less than 5%.
generators_peakers5.csv = unformatted version of above.
generators_peakers10.csv = unformatted database listing all (reported) generators with a capacity factor less than 10%.
allplants.csv = database created using the PeakersBatteries_plants.R code above that shows the combined data for all plants that report to EIA (does not include generator-specific data).
allplants_peakers5_formatted.csv = formatted database listing all plants with a (generators combined) capacity factor less than 5%.
allplants_peakers5.csv = unformatted version of above.
allplants_peakers10.csv = unformatted database listing all plants with a (generators combined) capacity factor less than 10%.