How Many Plants Does it Take to Power a City?
Americans consume large amounts of electricity. Meeting this demand requires a vast network of power plants, big and small, connected by a network of transmission lines. For a sense of scale, the graphic below shows how many power plants of a given type would be required to generate the same amount of electricity. One nuclear plant or two coal plants, for example, produce enough electricity to meet the yearly needs of one million households (about the size of Chicago). In actual practice, a number of power generation options work together within and across regions to reliably provide electricity.
Annual Electricity Consumption for 1 Million Homes (based on average annual household consumption of 12,000 kilowatt hours)