About this Dataset

California Power Plants

The power plant locations and characteristics are part of the California Energy Commission’s (CEC) California Energy Infrastructure geospatial data sets. The data is derived from the CEC’s QFER-1304 Power Plant Owner Reporting Database and is updated annually. Among other information, a number of identifying attributes are given for each power plant as well as the generator units at each plant, their energy type, the total nameplate capacity, and their owners and operators.

This California Power Plants data set has identical information to the many tables making up the QFER data set, however this single feature layer is derived by condensing several QFER tables into one. Some fields of the original tables have been omitted, and point geometries, determined by each plants’ address fields, have been appended for geospatial display. Four new fields have been compiled from QFER’s Annual Generation Table. These are listed and defined as:

Nameplate Capacity (MW): The total nameplate capacity from every unit that makes up the power plant, regardless of status
Units: List of the unit names at each power plant
Primary Energy Source: A list of the primary energy sources used by every generator at the plant
Last Reported Year: The last year that the power plant was recorded in the Annual Generation Table.

Primary Energy Source Descriptions:

Source	Type	Description
AB	Biomass	Agriculture Crop Byproducts/Straw/Energy Crops
BAT	Battery	Battery Storage - not to be counted as a primary fuel/energy source
BFG	Natural Gas	Blast Furnace Gas
BIT	Coal	Bituminous Coal
BLQ	Biomass	Black Liquor
COL	Coal	Anthracite Coal
DFO	Oil	Distillate Fuel Oil (includes all Diesel and No. 1, No. 2, and No. 4 Fuel Oils)
GAS	Oil	Gasoline
GEO	Geothermal	Geothermal
JF	Oil	Jet Fuel
KER	Oil	Kerosene
LFG	Biomass	Landfill Gas
LIG	Coal	Lignite Coal
LWAT	Large Hydro	Large Hydro
MSW	Biomass	Municipal Solid Waste
N/A	Unspecified	Other, non-specified
NA	Unspecified	Not Available
NG	Natural Gas	Natural Gas (Methane - Pipeline Weighted National Average w/ HHV 1,050 Btu/scf)
NUC	Nuclear	Nuclear (Uranium, Plutonium, Thorium)
OBG	Biomass	Other Biomass Gases (Digester Gas, Methane, and other biomass gases)
OBL	Biomass	Other Biomass Liquid (Ethanol, Fish Oil, Liquid Acetonitrile Waste, Medical Waste, Tall Oil, Waste Alcohol, and other Biomass not specified)
OBS	Biomass	Other Biomass Solid (Animal Manure and Waste, Solid Byproducts, and other solid biomass not specified)
OG	Natural Gas	Other Gas (Butane, Coal Processes, Coke-Oven, Refinery, and other processes)
OGW	Biomass	Other gases, waste products
OIL	Oil	Non-specified oil products, may include distillate fuel oil
OTH	Other	Other (Batteries, Chemicals, Coke Breeze, Hydrogen, Pitch, Sulfur, Tar Coal, and miscellaneous technologies)
PC	Petroleum Coke	Petroleum Coke (Solid)
PG	Natural Gas	Propane
PUR	Other	Purchased Steam
RFO	Oil	Residual Fuel Oil (includes No. 5 and No. 6 Fuel Oils and Bunker C Fuel Oil)
SC	Coal	Coal-based Synfuel and include briquettes, pellets, or extrusions, which are formed by binding materials and processes that recycle material
SLW	Biomass	Sludge Waste (Waste Oil blended with Residual Fuel Oil)
SUB	Coal	Sub-bituminous Coal
SUN	Solar	Solar (Photovoltaic, Thermal)
SWAT	Small Hydro	Small Hydro, Eligible Hydroelectric for RPS
TDF	Biomass	Tires
UNK	Unspecified	Other, non specified
UNSP	Unspecified	Unspecified
WAT	Hydro (Large and Small)	Water (Conventional, Pumped Storage)
WC	Coal	Waste/Other Coal (Anthracite Culm, Bituminous Gob, Fine Coal, Lignite Waste, Waste Coal)
WDL	Biomass	Wood Waste Liquids (Red Liquor, Sludge Wood, Spent Sulfite Liquor, and other wood related liquids not
WDS	Biomass	Wood/Wood Waste Solids (Paper Pellets, Railroad Ties, Utility Poles, Wood Chips, and other wood solids)
WH	Waste Heat	Waste Heat
WND	Wind	Wind
WO	Oil	Oil-Other and Waste Oil (Butane (Liquid), Crude Oil, Liquid Byproducts, Oil Waste, Propane (Liquid),
Re-refined

The purpose of this feature layer is to:

Support the CEC/Energy Assessments Division/Supply Analysis Office in electric generation report;
Support the CEC/REAT by providing information on renewable power plant location and capacity;
Support the CEC/STEP/Engineering Office/Geo Science in water management report;
Support CEC/STEP/Siting Office, Compliance Office, Environmental Office, Engineering Office, and /Strategic Transmission Planning and Corridor Designation Office by providing information on power plant location, capacity, fuel type, operational status, CEC docket id, etc.
Support the CEC/STEP/Strategic Transmission Planning and Corridor Designation Office in corridor study and transmission line siting;
Support the CEC staff's various analysis by providing general geographic reference information;
Enhance communication between government agencies on emergency management, resource management, economic development, and environmental study;
Provide illustration of critical infrastructure spatial data to the public or other agencies
Organization: State of California
Last updated: 2025-07-23T20:36:28.297255
Tags: california-energy-commission, california-natural-resources-agency, caopendata, capacity, power-plant, qfer

Tables

Table 1

@usgov.ca_gov_california_power_plants_469d0.table_1

142.2 KB
2060 rows
13 columns


CREATE TABLE table_1 (
  "objectid" BIGINT,
  "cecplantid" VARCHAR,
  "plantname" VARCHAR,
  "retired_plant" BIGINT,
  "operator_company" VARCHAR,
  "county" VARCHAR,
  "capacity_latest" DOUBLE,
  "units" VARCHAR,
  "prienergysource" VARCHAR,
  "startdate" VARCHAR,
  "cec_jurisdictional" BIGINT,
  "x" DOUBLE,
  "y" DOUBLE
);