See also Climate and Environmental Data sources

Energy Source Data

National Renewable Energy Laboratory – GIS Site

“The National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s Geographic Information System (GIS) team analyzes wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, and other energy resources and inputs the data into the GIS—Geographic Information System.” The site includes downloadable GIS data (must register) as well as maps and interactive viewers.

Southern Methodist University Geothermal Laboratory

Research and data on geothermal energy in the US. Includes downloadable state by state geo-coded tabular data sets of drill wells with temperature, depth, etc., for estimating heat flow. Also shows the Geothermal Energy Map of North America.

Energy Generation / Consumption Data

Energy generation and consumption data are hard to find for areas smaller than states. But more and more data is becoming available, and states and some countries are making data available by county and metro area.

eGRID (EPA) – Emissions & Generation Resource Integrated Database

Comprehensive inventory of environmental attributes of electric power systems in the US. The preeminent source of air emissions data for the electric power sector, eGRID is based on available plant-specific data for all U.S. electricity generating plants that provide power to the electric grid and report data to the U.S. government. eGRID contains air emissions data for nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide, and mercury. Plant facilities have latitude and longitude fields, meaning they can be brought into GIS.

Energy Information Administration

The main site for US energy statistics from the US Government (Department of Energy) – no GIS data but lots of tabular data on a variety of topics – mostly national or state level (state level can be joined to state GIS layer) – see for example, the Energy Consumption, Price, and Expenditure by State – http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/states/_seds.html – some tables are in Excel or CSV format, others in HTML but these can be easily brought into Excel and then into ArcGIS if joined to a state data layer.  (To import a table in HTML format, save the page as html, then open it in Excel)

US Energy Information Administration Mapping Dataset

The US energy information administration data site with GIS data layers and interactive maps for environmental data and energy use in the US.