This dataset is the electrical generation capacity, or nameplate capacity, of power plants summed over the grid for the most recent year available. It summarizes the maximum amount of electrical power that could be generated at any given time classified by fuels that would be used to generate it. Two factors complicate this dataset. First, there is no single state or federal agency that collects data on all the generation sources in Alaska. Second, some communities have isolated microgrids where generation sources are easy to identify, but other communities are interconnected with interties into grids where generation sources are shared. In those cases, it is therefore impossible to pair a community with individual power stations (called plants) or the operators/utilities for which generation is recorded even if the plant is physically located within a community. To address the first issue, this dataset derives from the Alaska Energy Statistics workbooks, which in turn compiles data from multiple sources including community Power Cost Equalization reports collated by the Alaska Energy Authority and reporting to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Source data was harmonized to account for differences in reporting through a combination of subject matter expertise and transformations. To address the second issue, capacity is summed over all the generators with different fuels - diesel and natural gas boilers, solar installations, wind turbines - that are connected to a grid. Grids were defined as an element of the Alaska Energy Statistics workbooks and implemented with a lookup table that joins them to individual plants. The same values for generation capacity are reported for all the communities on a grid, which creates multiple duplicate values in this dataset.
2026-01-23
| Long Name | Description | Field Name | Type | Unit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FIPS Code | 5-digit Federal Information Processing Series (FIPS) code identifier for places and boroughs (counties), assigned and maintained by the Census Bureau | fips_code | string | |
| Community Name | Name of the community | name | string | |
| Service Area Capacity (MW) | Sum of nameplace capacities of all generation plants within the service area | service_area_capacity_mw | number | MW |
| Fuel Type | Generation fuel as defined by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) | fuel_type | string | |
| Year | Four digit year as Common Era (CE) for which generation capacity was summarized | year | integer |
| fips_code | name | service_area_capacity_mw | fuel_type | year |
|---|
Copy the reference below.
Alaska Center for Energy and Power (ACEP) at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF). Yearly Electrical Generation Capacity By Community. Version v3.0. Alaska Energy Data Gateway, 2026. https://akenergygateway.alaska.edu/explore/data/public_capacity. Accessed January 29, 2026.