Hardly Any New Gas Capacity in 2024, and a Plan for More: EIA on Combined-Cycle Plants Through 2028

Natural gas has made more of America's electricity than any other source since 2016, and yet in 2024 hardly any new gas capacity came online. A short note of June 11, 2025 from the U.S. Energy Information Administration looks at what developers plan to build next, drawing on the agency's own inventory of existing and proposed generating units. It also asks how much of that plan is already being built.

The plants in question are combined-cycle gas turbines, CCGTs for short. The note calls them "relatively efficient" and says they "account for most of the natural gas-fired generating capacity in the United States." They are also "flexible and can quickly ramp up or down to respond to changes in power supply." Their design lifetime is "typically 25 years to 30 years," and with maintenance and upgrades "their lifetime can be significantly extended."

A thin year

In 2024 the note counts a single new combined-cycle unit, an "industrial sector CCGT power generator" adding "98 megawatts of CCGT capacity to the existing power plant at" a facility the note names. One unit.

The note says the decline "can be partly attributed to a shift to bring more renewable capacity online, mainly solar and wind." Operators, it adds, have also developed battery storage that is often paired with renewables. Falling construction costs for renewables, with federal tax incentives and other policies, "further encourage investment in renewable energy projects." Partly. That is the note's word.

The plan, year by year

The expected additions open the note, where developers "plan to add 18.7 gigawatts (GW) of combined-cycle capacity to the grid by 2028, with 4.3 GW already under construction." The agency's monthly survey asks respondents for the status of each planned unit, to tell "early stages of development, such as seeking regulatory approval," from "later stages of construction."

For 2025 the expected addition is 1.6 GW of CCGT. For 2026 and 2027 the expected figure is the same, 3.3 GW in 2026 and 3.3 GW in 2027, but the two years stand in different places. More than half of the capacity for 2026 "is already under construction," while most of the capacity for 2027 "is not yet under construction." The same figure, in a different state of readiness each year.

Under construction is a status, not a delivery date. The year beside it is the developer's plan.

The big year, and its limit

The largest step is projected for 2028, when "Another 10.6 GW might be added in 2028." If that happens, the note says, it would be "the most CCGT capacity coming online in any year since 2018."

Then comes the limit, in the same paragraph of the note. The developers of all those planned units "are working through regulatory approvals and securing needed equipment, both of which add uncertainty to their construction costs and initial operation date." Approvals and equipment, both still in progress.

Approvals and equipment sit between a plan and a first operating day, and the note says both add uncertainty to the cost and to the date. It leaves open who carries the cost if that day moves.