Methodology
Where the data comes from, what the labels mean, and how fresh it is.
US Energy Map combines two very different kinds of data: a federal registry for battery storage, and hand-curated research for data centers. We keep them transparent and side by side rather than blending them into a single opaque number.
Battery storage (BESS)
Battery entries are ingested automatically from EIA-860M, the U.S. Energy Information Administration's preliminary monthly inventory of electric generators. We filter the inventory to battery technology and aggregate individual generator rows up to the plant level (a single site often reports several generators).
- Coordinates are the exact site coordinates reported to the EIA.
- Power capacity (MW) is the nameplate value; energy capacity (MWh) is shown where reported.
- Entries from this pipeline carry an
eia-id prefix.
EIA-860M is not exhaustive. It captures utility-scale generators (roughly ≥1 MW) that report to the federal government. Behind-the-meter, residential, and small commercial batteries are not included.
Data centers
There is no federal registry of data centers, so these entries are hand-curated. Every data center on the map has a public source URL — we don't publish a project we can't point to. Sources include operator press releases (AWS, Google, Microsoft, Meta, Apple), trade reporting such as Data Center Knowledge and Black Ridge Research, and the public portfolios of major colocation providers (Equinix, Digital Realty, CyrusOne, CoreSite, NTT, DataBank, and others).
- Where an exact site isn't publicly disclosed, coordinates fall back to the city or county centroid.
- Coverage prioritizes named hyperscale and large colocation campuses; it is not a complete census of every facility.
Status & capacity definitions
| Label | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Operating | The project (or a phase of it) is energized and in service. |
| Under construction | Construction has begun but the site is not yet fully in service. |
| Planned | Announced or permitted with a target year, but construction has not started. |
Capacity is reported in megawatts (MW) of power. For multi-phase campuses, capacity reflects the best available figure for the scope described by the source; large AI training clusters are evolving quickly and figures may lag announcements.
Deduplication
Because batteries are auto-ingested and data centers are hand-entered, an automated battery entry can overlap a curated one. The ingest skips an EIA entry when it falls within ~10 km of a hand-curated entry, or matches one strongly by name in the same state. Hand-curated entries are always preserved.
How fresh is it?
The battery dataset refreshes on a monthly cadence: an automated job re-pulls the latest EIA-860M release around the 26th of each month and proposes an update. Data center entries are updated as announcements warrant. The "updated" date shown across the site reflects the most recent dataset build.
Found something wrong or missing? The dataset and its history are public on GitHub.