Power plants and the grid in North Carolina
North Carolina has 924 power plants with 36.7 GW of capacity, natural gas the largest share at 17.6 GW. The map shows 51 data centers in North Carolina. Its interconnection queue holds 179 active requests for 20.9 GW.
Capacity by fuel
924 power plants with 36.7 GW of capacity, planned generators left out.
- Natural gas: 17.6 GW from 22 plants (48%)
- Solar: 7.1 GW from 753 plants (19%)
- Nuclear: 5.1 GW from 3 plants (14%)
- Coal: 3.2 GW from 3 plants (9%)
- Hydro: 1.9 GW from 37 plants (5%)
- Oil: 516 MW from 45 plants (1%)
- Biomass: 408 MW from 24 plants (1%)
- Wind: 397 MW from 2 plants (1%)
- Battery storage: 316 MW from 33 plants (1%)
- Pumped storage: 174 MW from 1 plant (under 1%)
- Other: 54 MW from 1 plant (under 1%)
Largest plants
- Roxboro: Coal, 2.4 GW
- McGuire: Nuclear, 2.3 GW
- Belews Creek: Natural gas, 2.2 GW
- Marshall (NC): Natural gas, 2.1 GW
- Sherwood H Smith Jr Energy Complex: Natural gas, 1.9 GW
- Brunswick Nuclear: Nuclear, 1.9 GW
- Lincoln Combustion: Natural gas, 1.5 GW
- James E. Rogers Energy Complex: Natural gas, 1.4 GW
- Rowan: Natural gas, 974 MW
- Harris (NC): Nuclear, 964 MW
Largest plants near Raleigh
- Harris (NC): Nuclear, 964 MW, 35 km away
- Knightdale Battery: Battery storage, 100 MW, 18 km away
- Phobos Solar, LLC: Solar, 79 MW, 45 km away
- Fox Creek Solar: Solar, 50 MW, 48 km away
- Brantley Solar: Solar, 50 MW, 45 km away
Largest plants near Charlotte
- McGuire: Nuclear, 2.3 GW, 27 km away
- Marshall (NC): Natural gas, 2.1 GW, 45 km away
- Lincoln Combustion: Natural gas, 1.5 GW, 31 km away
- Kings Mountain Energy Center: Natural gas, 486 MW, 48 km away
- Cowans Ford: Hydro, 324 MW, 28 km away
Largest plants near Greensboro
- Belews Creek: Natural gas, 2.2 GW, 33 km away
- Rockingham County CT Station: Natural gas, 825 MW, 29 km away
- Dan River: Natural gas, 666 MW, 47 km away
- Lick Creek Solar, LLC: Solar, 50 MW, 38 km away
- Ingredion Winston Salem: Biomass, 7 MW, 39 km away
Largest plants near Durham
- Harris (NC): Nuclear, 964 MW, 41 km away
- Knightdale Battery: Battery storage, 100 MW, 49 km away
- Univ of NC Chapel Hill Cogen Facility: Coal, 32 MW, 16 km away
- NCSU Cates Cogeneration Plant: Natural gas, 9 MW, 33 km away
- NCSU CCUP Cogeneration Plant: Natural gas, 6 MW, 33 km away
Largest plants near Winston-Salem
- Belews Creek: Natural gas, 2.2 GW, 27 km away
- Rockingham County CT Station: Natural gas, 825 MW, 46 km away
- Buck: Natural gas, 668 MW, 45 km away
- Sugar Solar, LLC: Solar, 60 MW, 36 km away
- Lick Creek Solar, LLC: Solar, 50 MW, 23 km away
Planned and under construction
40 generators planned, under construction or testing, 2.1 GW in all, not counted above.
- Solar: 1.8 GW
- Battery storage: 373 MW
Grid operators
- PJM (ISO or RTO): 128 plants
- Duke Energy Progress East (CPLE): 416 plants
- Duke Energy Carolinas (DUK): 361 plants
- Duke Energy Progress West (CPLW): 8 plants
- Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA): 5 plants
- YAD: 4 plants
- SEPA: 2 plants
Data centers
51 data center sites on the map.
- Mecklenburg County: 9 sites
- Wake County: 9 sites
- Durham County: 8 sites
- Catawba County: 4 sites
- Guilford County: 4 sites
- Rutherford County: 4 sites
- Caldwell County: 3 sites
- Operators with the most sites: CenturyLink (4), Meta (4), Flexential (3), Microsoft (3), Tierpoint (3), Apple (2), CyrusOne (2), Google (2), TierPoint (2), Amazon (1)
Interconnection queue
179 active requests to connect 20.9 GW of new generation and storage, and 3 suspended requests, from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Queued Up data.
- Natural gas: 10.2 GW in 54 requests
- Battery storage: 4 GW in 31 requests
- Solar: 3.8 GW in 56 requests
- Other: 2.7 GW in 21 requests
- Nuclear: 99 MW in 4 requests
- Coal: 60 MW in 2 requests
- Oil: 43 MW in 3 requests
- Hydro: 36 MW in 8 requests
Sources
Power plants: EIA-860M (US); NRCan NACEI (Canada, Mexico); WRI GPPD (Mexico); OpenStreetMap via Geofabrik (Canada, Mexico gap fill); USGS USWTDB/USPVDB; EPA eGRID; Natural Earth admin-1; HIFLD control areas; location attributes from WorldPop (R2025A), Global Solar Atlas PVOUT, Global Wind Atlas 4, USFS Wildfire Hazard Potential, the USGS National Seismic Hazard Model and the previous publish's lines and substations; water distances from OpenStreetMap via Geofabrik; gas distances and county queue from the previous publish's EIA gas pipelines and LBNL Queued Up requests; nearest city from Natural Earth populated places; cooling degree days from NOAA NCEI nClimDiv county normals; elevation and slope from the Copernicus DEM GLO-30 (ESA, via AWS Open Data); water stress from WRI Aqueduct 4.0; ozone nonattainment from the EPA Green Book; drought from the U.S. Drought Monitor; tribal land from US Census TIGER/Line. License: ODbL (derivative database; EIA content is public domain, NRCan OGL-Canada, WRI GPPD CC BY 4.0; location attributes from WorldPop, Global Solar Atlas, Global Wind Atlas, LBNL Queued Up and WRI Aqueduct CC BY 4.0, USFS, USGS, EIA, NOAA, EPA, US Census and Natural Earth public domain, Copernicus DEM GLO-30 © DLR e.V. and Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, the U.S. Drought Monitor courtesy of NDMC)
Places gazetteer (cities, airports, regions): Natural Earth populated places; OurAirports; Natural Earth admin-1; Wattlas curated places. License: Public domain
Data centers: Epoch AI (CC BY); OpenStreetMap via the public Overpass API (ODbL, © OpenStreetMap contributors); Ringmast4r Global-Data-Center-Map (custom permissive license, attribution required); location attributes from WorldPop (R2025A), Global Solar Atlas PVOUT, Global Wind Atlas 4, USFS Wildfire Hazard Potential, the USGS National Seismic Hazard Model and the previous publish's lines and substations; gas distances and county queue from the previous publish's EIA gas pipelines and LBNL Queued Up requests; nearest city from Natural Earth populated places; generation within 20 km from the previous publish's plants; cooling degree days from NOAA NCEI nClimDiv county normals; elevation and slope from the Copernicus DEM GLO-30 (ESA, via AWS Open Data); water stress from WRI Aqueduct 4.0; ozone nonattainment from the EPA Green Book; drought from the U.S. Drought Monitor; tribal land from US Census TIGER/Line. License: CC BY; ODbL; custom permissive; WRI Aqueduct CC BY 4.0; USFS, USGS, EIA, NOAA, EPA, US Census and Natural Earth public domain; Copernicus DEM GLO-30 © DLR e.V. and Airbus Defence and Space GmbH; the U.S. Drought Monitor courtesy of NDMC
Interconnection queue requests: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and GridTracker, "Queued Up". License: CC BY 4.0
States and provinces (simplified polygons): Natural Earth 10m admin-1. License: Public domain