Electricity emissions by fuel, 1990-2022

What this dataset measures

Built to check Washington Policy Center and Department of Ecology claims, made in April 2026, about whether the state is on track for its 2030 limit and what drove the 2022 decline. Uses the official inventory, the statute, the utility fuel mix the inventory relies on, federal generation data, and Ecology's large-emitter reports.

Geography

Washington, United States

Unit of observation

State-year (and sector-year or fuel-year)

Update cadence

Updated when Ecology publishes a new inventory (next one due by December 31, 2026).

Curator

FactHub Research Team

Curated data tables

Electricity emissions by fuel, 1990-2022

Electricity-consumption emissions by fuel. Unspecified is blank before 2020 because Commerce did not report it separately then.

Unit of observation: Year

electricity-emissions-by-fuel.csv text/csv · 1.5 KB (1,556 bytes)

All 33 rows 7 columns Download the file

All 33 rows

year	electricity_total_mmt_co2e million metric tons CO2e	coal_mmt_co2e million metric tons CO2e	natural_gas_mmt_co2e million metric tons CO2e	petroleum_mmt_co2e million metric tons CO2e	unspecified_mmt_co2e million metric tons CO2e	other_mmt_co2e million metric tons CO2e
1990	16.9000	16.8000	0.1000	0.0000	—	0.0000
1991	17.0811	16.9069	0.1679	0.0063	—	0.0000
1992	18.3119	17.4286	0.8787	0.0046	—	0.0000
1993	19.2539	17.1689	2.0455	0.0395	—	0.0000
1994	20.5213	17.4384	3.0752	0.0077	—	0.0000
1995	19.4186	16.3532	2.9033	0.1621	—	0.0000
1996	20.2966	17.0349	3.0065	0.2553	—	0.0000
1997	19.0911	16.7292	2.0171	0.3449	—	0.0000
1998	20.3589	17.3762	2.9290	0.0537	—	0.0000
1999	19.6023	17.1997	2.3942	0.0084	—	0.0000
2000	23.3000	17.4000	5.3000	0.6000	—	0.0000
2001	20.7185	14.2302	5.8089	0.6794	—	0.0000
2002	14.8072	11.3162	3.2931	0.0322	—	0.1656
2003	18.3735	14.7811	3.3283	0.0321	—	0.2320
2004	19.3695	14.9248	3.3314	0.0661	—	1.0472
2005	19.1061	15.2424	3.6134	0.0367	—	0.2136
2006	18.2763	14.6893	3.3476	0.0852	—	0.1542
2007	19.3336	15.2476	3.8388	0.0956	—	0.1515
2008	18.9338	15.0803	3.6282	0.1012	—	0.1241
2009	19.7327	14.6827	4.8034	0.1211	—	0.1256
2010	20.9104	15.8273	4.8375	0.1092	—	0.1363
2011	15.8491	12.8196	2.7959	0.0696	—	0.1640
2012	15.2377	12.0795	2.9455	0.0686	—	0.1442
2013	18.3368	13.3428	4.8143	0.0677	—	0.1120
2014	18.3450	13.9605	4.1602	0.0606	—	0.1637
2015	19.1847	14.0325	4.9138	0.0723	—	0.1662
2016	17.0957	12.5065	4.2762	0.0602	—	0.2528
2017	16.8741	12.3926	4.1434	0.0718	—	0.2663
2018	16.4658	11.7010	4.4770	0.0173	—	0.2705
2019	21.8580	15.2413	6.2114	0.0312	—	0.3742
2020	17.2860	8.0620	4.1566	0.0005	4.9855	0.0814
2021	18.7106	8.7548	4.7078	0.0004	5.1637	0.0838
2022	17.3790	8.2797	3.8371	0.0006	5.1932	0.0684

7 field definitions

Field	Type	Meaning	Units	Value type
year	integer	Calendar year	—	observed
electricity_total_mmt_co2e	number	Electricity emissions: electricity total	million metric tons CO2e	observed
coal_mmt_co2e	number	Electricity emissions: coal	million metric tons CO2e	observed
natural_gas_mmt_co2e	number	Electricity emissions: natural gas	million metric tons CO2e	observed
petroleum_mmt_co2e	number	Electricity emissions: petroleum	million metric tons CO2e	observed
unspecified_mmt_co2e	number	Electricity emissions: unspecified	million metric tons CO2e	observed
other_mmt_co2e	number	Electricity emissions: other	million metric tons CO2e	observed

Supporting files

Source snapshots, manifests, quality reports, documentation, and other materials used to produce or review this release.

• results.json Derived table · application/json · 25.7 KB (26,302 bytes)

  Saved analyses and attributed statements, generated by build.js.

• build.js Transformation manifest · text/javascript · 22.2 KB (22,773 bytes)

  Node.js script that computes every saved analysis from the CSV tables.

• dataset-parts.json Documentation · application/json · 25.6 KB (26,193 bytes)

  Sources, table definitions, replications and limitations for this release, as stored in the dataset content.

Sources

1. Washington Department of Ecology, Washington Greenhouse Gas Inventory: 1990-2022 (publication 26-14-030, April 2026) Official statewide totals, sector values, limits table, and Ecology's statements on schedule and drivers.

   Retrieved November 3, 2026. Washington State government publication. Public government document; linked, not rehosted.

   Reliability: Government. Has a stake in this finding. Ecology prepares the inventory under RCW 70A.45.020 and administers the state climate policies it measures. Most sector values come from EPA's State Inventory Tool; electricity uses Commerce fuel mix data.

2. Ecology, Inventory Results 1990-2022 workbook (supplement to publication 26-14-030) Unrounded yearly totals by sector and fuel used for every calculation.

   Retrieved November 3, 2026. Washington State government publication. Values copied into annual-emissions.csv and electricity-emissions-by-fuel.csv.

   Reliability: Government. Has a stake in this finding. Same publisher and methods as the inventory report; values match the report's rounded tables.

3. RCW 70A.45.020, Greenhouse gas emissions reductions - Reporting requirements Statutory limits for 2020-2050 and the current reporting deadlines.

   Retrieved November 3, 2026. Public law. Public law.

   Reliability: Government. Official code text published by the Washington State Legislature, as amended by 2025 c 195.

4. Senate Bill 5036, Chapter 195, Laws of 2025 (as passed) Shows the reporting language before and after the 2025 change (struck and added text).

   Retrieved November 3, 2026. Public law. Public law.

   Reliability: Government. Enrolled session law; effective July 27, 2025.

5. Final Bill Report, SB 5036 (2025) Nonpartisan staff summary of prior and new reporting rules, including the January 2025 inventory covering data through 2021.

   Retrieved November 3, 2026. Public legislative document. Public document.

   Reliability: Government. Prepared by nonpartisan legislative staff; not part of the law.

6. Ecology news release, April 24, 2026: New report: Clean energy is powering reductions in Washington's carbon emissions Ecology's public account of the drivers of the 2022 drop.

   Retrieved November 3, 2026. Washington State government publication. Linked, not rehosted.

   Reliability: Party to the dispute. Has a stake in this finding. Press release from the agency whose report and policies are being judged.

7. Ecology, GHG Reporting Program Publication (data.wa.gov dataset idhm-59de) Reported and covered emissions of large emitters, 2012-2024, the early indicator for 2023-2024.

   Retrieved November 3, 2026. Public domain (Washington open data). Yearly sums copied into large-emitter-indicator.csv.

   Reliability: Government. Has a stake in this finding. Entities emitting 10,000 tonnes or more report to Ecology under WAC 173-441; fuel suppliers and electric power entities were added in 2022. Dataset rows were last updated April 24, 2026.

8. Ecology, Tracking greenhouse gases Ecology's statement that large emitters posted a 0.45% decrease from 2023 to 2024.

   Retrieved November 3, 2026. Washington State government publication. Linked.

   Reliability: Government. Has a stake in this finding. Agency web page; checks our sum of the large-emitter data.

9. Washington Department of Commerce, CY2022 Washington State Electric Utility Fuel Mix Disclosure Report Aggregate megawatt-hours by fuel for electricity sold to Washington customers, 2000-2022 (Table 2).

   Retrieved November 3, 2026. Washington State government publication. Values copied into utility-fuel-mix.csv.

   Reliability: Government. Compiled by Commerce from reports by more than 60 utilities and BPA under RCW 19.29A; the inventory's electricity sector is built from it. The report header reads 2023 fuel mix disclosure report, for report year 2022.

10. U.S. Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Operational Data (API v2), Washington, all sectors, annual net generation Independent federal cross-check of generation at Washington power plants by fuel.

    Retrieved November 3, 2026. Public domain (U.S. government work). Values copied into eia-instate-generation.csv.

    Reliability: Government. Federal statistical agency; facets location WA, sector 99 (all), fuels HYC, WND, SUN, COW, NG, ALL.

11. Todd Myers, Political spin in state's new CO2 emissions reports masks climate policy failure, Washington Policy Center, April 27, 2026 The claims checked: the gap to the 2030 path, the needed yearly cut, the drivers of the 2022 drop, and the reporting deadline.

    Retrieved November 3, 2026. All rights reserved; quoted briefly for review. Linked and quoted, not rehosted.

    Reliability: Party to the dispute. Has a stake in this finding. Washington Policy Center is a free-market think tank that has criticized the state's climate policies and sued Ecology over the inventory's timing.

Limitations and reproducibility

Fully reproducible: All inputs are public. build.js recomputes every saved analysis from the CSV tables, which were copied from the cited workbook, report table, API query and open-data query.

• The inventory ends in 2022. 2023 and 2024 values here are estimates from large-emitter reports, which use different coverage and methods.
• The statute sets only limits for 2020, 2030, 2040 and 2050. Any path between them is an analytical choice; several are shown.
• Ecology sets the 1990 baseline at 93.1 MMT under current methods, while the statute also names fixed tonnages (90.5 MMT for 2020, 50 MMT for 2030). Both readings are shown.
• The electricity sector is consumption-based (power bought by Washington utilities, including imports); all other sectors are production-based estimates, mostly downscaled from national data by EPA's State Inventory Tool.
• Changes in power sources from one year to the next are descriptive; they do not split the emissions change among causes.