Water withdrawal and consumption estimates for thermoelectric power plants in the United States, 2015 (ver. 1.2, July 2024)

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) developed models to estimate plant-level thermoelectric water use based on linked heat-and-water budgets to provide a consistent method for water-use estimation across the fleet of U.S. thermoelectric plants. In addition to calculating a thermodynamic “best” estimate for each powerplant, the models also calculate plausible ranges of minimum and maximum withdrawal and consumption. Historically, there have been two federal sources for thermoelectric water use information. The Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration (EIA) publishes annual thermoelectric water withdrawal and consumption data based on plant operator-reported surveys. The USGS has published water-use reports every 5 years that include county-level thermoelectric withdrawal and consumption estimates based on data from State water agencies, plant operators, and the EIA. The USGS thermoelectric water-use models provide independent estimates from these plant operator-reported data and, unlike the reported data, the model estimates are derived from a consistent method. This dataset presents water withdrawal and consumption estimates along with associated information for 1,122 water-using, utility-scale thermoelectric power plants in the United States for 2015. The total estimated withdrawal for all thermoelectric plants in the U.S. in 2015 was about 96 billion gallons per day (Bgal/d), and total estimated consumption was about 3 Bgal/d. This data release supports the findings published in Harris and Diehl (2019).