out_eia923__boiler_fuel
Return to SearchMonthly time series of boiler fuel consumption and emissions.
- Most-recent data:
2025
- Processing:
Data has been expanded into a wide/denormalized format, with IDs and codes accompanied by human-readable names and descriptions.
- Source:
EIA Form 923 -- Power Plant Operations Report (Schedule 3)
- Primary key:
plant_id_eia, boiler_id, energy_source_code, prime_mover_code, report_date
Usage Warnings
Date column arbitrarily uses the first of the month.
A small number of respondents only report annual fuel consumption, and all of it is reported in December.
Data has been drawn from several EIA sources which are not always consistent with each other, and PUDL chooses the most consistent or relevant value to facilitate cross-referencing even if that means some values will differ from the raw sources. See Harvesting for details, and see Entity Resolution Methodology for a fuller conceptual overview.
Additional Details
Reports the quantity of each type of fuel consumed by each boiler on a monthly basis, as well as the sulfur and ash content of those fuels. Fuel quantity is reported in standard EIA fuel units (tons, barrels, Mcf). Heat content per unit of fuel is also reported, making this table useful for calculating the thermal efficiency (heat rate) of various generation units.
This table provides better coverage of the entire fleet of generators than the core_eia923__monthly_generation_fuel table, but the fuel consumption reported here is not directly associated with a generator. This complicates the heat rate calculation, since the associations between individual boilers and generators are incomplete and can be complex.
This table inherits canonicalized values for plants and utilities. EIA reports many attributes in many different tables across EIA-860 and EIA-923. In order to compile tidy, well-normalized database tables, PUDL collects all instances of these values and and chooses a canonical value. By default, PUDL chooses the most consistently reported value of a given attribute as long as it is at least 70% of the given instances reported. If an attribute was reported inconsistently across the original EIA tables, then it will show up as a null value. See /methodology/entity_resolution for a conceptual overview of this process.
Columns
Date reported.
The unique six-digit facility identification number, also called an ORISPL, assigned by the Energy Information Administration.
A manually assigned PUDL plant ID. May not be constant over time.
Plant name.
The EIA Utility Identification number.
A manually assigned PUDL utility ID. May not be stable over time.
The name of the utility.
Alphanumeric boiler ID.
Dynamically assigned PUDL unit id. WARNING: This ID is not guaranteed to be static long term as the input data and algorithm may evolve over time.
A 2-3 letter code indicating the energy source (e.g. fuel type) associated with the record.
Code for the type of prime mover (e.g. CT, CG)
Simplified fuel type code used in PUDL
Consumption of the fuel type in physical unit. Note: this is the total quantity consumed for both electricity and, in the case of combined heat and power plants, process steam production.
Heat content of the fuel in millions of Btus per physical unit.
Total consumption of fuel in physical unit, year to date. Note: this is the total quantity consumed for both electricity and, in the case of combined heat and power plants, process steam production.
Sulfur content percentage by weight to the nearest 0.01 percent.
Ash content percentage by weight to the nearest 0.1 percent.
Maturity of the source data published by EIA that is reflected in this record. EIA releases data incrementally over time, including monthly updates, annual year-to-date updates, provisional early releases of annual data, and final annual release data that is not expected to change further. Records sourced from multiple upstream EIA datasets may have no well defined data maturity. Records whose values have been inferred within PUDL will also have no data maturity.