Energy source · 2024
Natural Gas Energy
The largest source of US electricity, natural gas powers turbines and combined-cycle plants. Ranked by share of net generation across all 50 states, from EIA filings.
- Texas
- Top producer
- 1.9B MWh
- US generation · 2024
- 50
- States generating
Verify with EIA → · Methodology
The verdict · 2024
Natural Gas generated 1.9B MWh of U.S. electricity in 2024 across 50 states - Texas leads, producing 16% of the national total, where natural gas supplies 51.6% of its own grid.
Figures are net generation by state from EIA State Electricity Profiles, generation, not consumption. Share of a state's own mix shows how much it leans on natural gas.
How Natural Gas Fits Into the U.S. Grid
Natural Gas generated 1.9B MWh of electricity across the United States in 2024 per EIA State Electricity Profiles, drawing on reported output from 50 of the 50 states covered in the dataset. Texas is the single largest producer, delivering 293.2M MWh of natural gas power that year, which amounts to 51.6% of that state's own generation mix. Beyond the top producer, states like Florida, Pennsylvania, California round out the leaderboard, each contributing 204.5M MWh or more. As a conventional fuel, natural gas's share tends to move with commodity cycles, plant retirements, and the build-out of competing resources.
Looking at the state-by-state rankings below, natural gas's role varies dramatically across the country, from 51.6% of the mix in Texas down to single-digit shares in states where it's mostly supplementary. That spread reflects three things the EIA data captures directly: local resource availability (a sunlight, wind, or water endowment), installed generating capacity, and the policy framework that sets what gets dispatched. For conventional sources, concentration tends to follow legacy infrastructure, existing plants, fuel delivery logistics, and labor pools that were built up over decades. Readers comparing states with similar shares should still check local utility rate cases, since the same fuel mix can produce different retail bills depending on transmission, distribution, and stranded-cost recovery.
For practical purposes, the numbers on this page support three common questions. First, how meaningful is natural gas to my state's electricity supply? The share-of-mix column answers that directly from EIA records. Second, is production growing or stable? Comparing 2024 generation against prior-year releases (available on EIA.gov) shows the trend. Third, is my state positioned to see a larger role for natural gas going forward? For conventional fuels, plant age, scheduled retirements, and competing-capacity pipelines tend to dominate the forward outlook. Each detail page links back to the individual state profile so readers can combine source-level and state-level data without losing context.
1.9B
MWh of natural gas generated nationally (2024)
Texas
top producer, 16% of US natural gas
50
states generating natural gas
51.6%
share of Texas's own electricity mix
Top Natural Gas producing states (2024)
Net generation in terawatt-hours (TWh), from EIA State Electricity Profiles.
- Texas
Texas
293.2 TWh
- Florida
Florida
204.5 TWh
- Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
143.9 TWh
- California 86.7
California
86.7 TWh
- Ohio 85.1
Ohio
85.1 TWh
- Louisiana 75.3
Louisiana
75.3 TWh
- Alabama 64.6
Alabama
64.6 TWh
- New York 62.3
New York
62.3 TWh
- Virginia 61
Virginia
61 TWh
- Mississippi 60
Mississippi
60 TWh
Natural Gas Generation by State
| Rank | State | Generation (MWh) | Share of State Mix |
|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | Texas | 293.2M | 51.6% |
| #2 | Florida | 204.5M | 76.0% |
| #3 | Pennsylvania | 143.9M | 59.2% |
| #4 | California | 86.7M | 35.6% |
| #5 | Ohio | 85.1M | 59.9% |
| #6 | Louisiana | 75.3M | 77.9% |
| #7 | Alabama | 64.6M | 46.2% |
| #8 | New York | 62.3M | 46.7% |
| #9 | Virginia | 61.0M | 58.8% |
| #10 | Mississippi | 60.0M | 78.9% |
| #11 | Georgia | 56.9M | 41.7% |
| #12 | Michigan | 55.7M | 45.1% |
| #13 | North Carolina | 55.5M | 41.3% |
| #14 | Arizona | 55.1M | 45.3% |
| #15 | Oklahoma | 47.7M | 50.7% |
| #16 | Indiana | 39.9M | 41.9% |
| #17 | Illinois | 30.1M | 16.2% |
| #18 | New Jersey | 29.6M | 46.6% |
| #19 | Wisconsin | 26.2M | 40.6% |
| #20 | Connecticut | 26.0M | 56.6% |
| #21 | Nevada | 25.0M | 52.3% |
| #22 | Oregon | 24.9M | 38.8% |
| #23 | Arkansas | 24.7M | 40.4% |
| #24 | South Carolina | 22.8M | 22.9% |
| #25 | Washington | 18.1M | 17.8% |
| #26 | Colorado | 17.9M | 29.5% |
| #27 | Kentucky | 17.3M | 25.9% |
| #28 | Tennessee | 16.5M | 21.4% |
| #29 | Massachusetts | 16.2M | 62.8% |
| #30 | Minnesota | 15.9M | 27.3% |
| #31 | Maryland | 13.9M | 37.7% |
| #32 | New Mexico | 11.6M | 28.8% |
| #33 | Utah | 11.6M | 32.3% |
| #34 | Iowa | 9.8M | 13.8% |
| #35 | Missouri | 9.1M | 13.5% |
| #36 | Rhode Island | 8.8M | 89.1% |
| #37 | Maine | 6.4M | 45.4% |
| #38 | Idaho | 6.3M | 31.5% |
| #39 | Wyoming | 5.4M | 13.4% |
| #40 | Kansas | 5.3M | 9.2% |
| #41 | New Hampshire | 4.4M | 26.5% |
| #42 | Delaware | 4.2M | 88.7% |
| #43 | West Virginia | 3.8M | 7.5% |
| #44 | Alaska | 3.1M | 46.9% |
| #45 | North Dakota | 2.4M | 5.7% |
| #46 | South Dakota | 2.3M | 10.8% |
| #47 | Nebraska | 1.4M | 3.7% |
| #48 | Montana | 995.2K | 3.7% |
| #49 | District of Columbia | 99.6K | 22.4% |
| #50 | Vermont | 1.1K | 0.1% |
Frequently Asked Questions
How much of US electricity comes from natural gas? ▼
Which state generates the most natural gas energy? ▼
Is natural gas energy being replaced by renewables? ▼
Where does RateWatt's natural gas data come from? ▼
Reading the natural gas numbers
Share of the mix tells you more than raw output, a small state can be natural gas-dominant while a big one barely uses it.
- Texas leans on natural gas for 51.6% of its grid, open its profile to see the full fuel mix and what that means for rates. Texas profile
- Compare natural gas against every other source to see how the U.S. grid is actually powered. All energy sources
- See why a heavier natural gas mix can tie a state's rates to commodity cycles. Read the guide
Generation mix is not the same as the electricity a state consumes, surplus is traded across the grid. See our methodology.
Energy Guides
Primary source data
Every figure on this page traces to these official federal datasets.
- 📊 EIA Electric Power Monthly Generation mix by state
- 🌿 EPA AVERT Power-grid avoided-emissions tool
- ☀️ NREL solar resource maps Solar potential by location
- 💨 NREL wind resource maps Wind potential by location
- ⚛️ NRC reactor data Nuclear operating status
- ⚡ FERC market data Transmission and market prices
All federal data sources used on this page
- EIA State Electricity Profiles, net generation by state by energy source. eia.gov/electricity/data/state
- EIA Electricity Data Browser, interactive electricity generation, consumption, prices. eia.gov/electricity/data-browser
- EIA Form EIA-861 (Annual Electric Power Industry Report), utility-level retail sales and rates. eia.gov/electricity/eia861
- EIA Open Data API, programmatic access to all EIA data series. eia.gov/opendata
- EPA eGRID, Emissions & Generation Resource Integrated Database for grid emissions. epa.gov/egrid
- NREL Annual Technology Baseline (ATB), electricity-generation cost projections by technology. atb.nrel.gov
Every figure on RateWatt is rendered directly from official U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) data, no number is typed in by an editor. Generation-mix figures come from EIA State Electricity Profiles; grid-emissions and cost-projection context on this page also draw on EPA eGRID and NREL ATB, cited above. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of 2026-05-15.