Slide 14 of 30
- The share of electric utility net generation from oil has decreased 14 percentage points since 1972, to about 2.5 percent of all electricity generation.
- Changes in the generating capacity are relatively slow and fuel choice is based on projections of future fuel prices.
- In the mid-1970's, oil-fired generation represented 16 to 17 percent of the nation's capability based on forecasts made in the 1960's and early 1970's of continued growth of electricity demand and stable supplies of cheap fuel oil.
- Oil has been displaced as the prime mover principally by the growth in coal generation spurred by higher oil prices in the 1970's; and much more recently by flexible natural gas-fired generation.
- After 1978, oil-fired generation fell steadily to about 2.5 percent in 1997.
Source: Energy Information Administration, Annual Energy Review 1997, DOE/EIA-0384(97). (Washington, DC, July 1998), Table 8.3.
