About Map of Grid

Page updated November 5, 2026. Everything on the map is an estimate from research and public sources. U.S. plants: EIA-860M September 2026 (preliminary). Canada plants: NACEI / CanVec, still mostly 2016–2017, with GEM September 2026 operating plants merged on top. Mexico: NACEI plus CNE permits updated 2 November 2026. Rest of world: GEM GIPT, September 2026. Figures can lag and be wrong.

What it is

Map of Grid lets people explore power plants worldwide and the high-voltage grid: the United States, Canada, and Mexico on the opening view, and OpenStreetMap lines at 220 kV and above when a world region is turned on. The map is free and may show ads. Pro is the deeper toolset: unlimited TRACE GRID, Intel Brief export, a plants CSV, and an ad-free map. Pro is $8 a month or $79 a year.

Sign-in and Pro status use a Supabase project dedicated to Map of Grid. The browser reads public.profiles on that project. An active or trialing subscription skips ads. Canceling keeps Pro until the period already paid ends. A past-due subscription does not.

It is for learning and research — students, teachers, journalists, analysts, and anyone who wants to see how electricity is made and moved. The numbers are estimates. They are not ground truth, not an official inventory, and not guaranteed accurate. A plant can be missing, retired, moved, or listed at the wrong size. It is not a control-room display, and it is not a study of how the grid would behave if a particular line or plant went out.

How current the data is

The map badge says Estimates and names the vintage in view. That badge is a label, not a promise that the dot is current. U.S. power plants are the EIA-860M September 2026 preliminary monthly inventory, read from EIA’s workbook (released 23 October 2026) and checked again on 5 November 2026: 14,722 plants, about 1,413 GW nameplate. The DOT/BTS NTAD “Power Plants in the US” service still reported period 202502 that day, so it was not used. EIA’s next monthly file is scheduled for 24 November 2026. EIA’s own note says these capacities are estimates and can be revised in a later month without a plant-by-plant explanation. Generators on the Retired sheet are omitted, as are generators EIA marks out of service and not expected to return. Solar and batteries added after September 2026 are missing until the next refresh.

Canadian plants are a merge, not a single census. The base is still NACEI (plants ≥100 MW, and renewable plants ≥1 MW) plus CanVec points that were not already present. That base is mostly 2016–2017, and it is what keeps smaller plants GEM’s cutoffs would drop. Checked again on 5 November 2026, the NACEI workbooks are still the August 2017 extract (FTP file last modified 23 July 2019) and the CanVec resource-management archive is still the 24 July 2019 file. No newer national open-government plant list has both coordinates and capacity. Statistics Canada’s capacity tables, updated through October 2026, are provincial totals. The Canadian Wind Turbine Database (Natural Resources Canada, updated 24 April 2026) is individual turbines, not stations, and it does not cover hydro, gas, solar, or nuclear. NRCan’s CERP clean-energy map was last modified in 2022 and leaves out fossil plants. On top of the 2016–2017 base, operating locations from the Global Integrated Power Tracker, Global Energy Monitor, September 2026 (CC BY 4.0) update a matched site’s fuel and nameplate, or add a site the base did not have. TransitionZero rows (CC BY-NC) are excluded: 45 operating Canada units. This pass has 1,238 plants and about 155 GW in the capacity tally. GEM’s September 2026 release is still the newest integrated tracker; the world tiles were left as they are.

Alberta no longer shows coal. GEM’s September 2026 gas nameplates replace the 2017 coal figures: Genesee 1,857 MW (Capital Power’s 666 + 666 + 525 MW; an AESO limit can cap output below that), Sheerness 780 MW, Battle River 540 MW, Keephills 866 MW, and H.R. Milner 450 MW. TransAlta lists Battle River at about 550 MW gross and told the AESO on 2 November 2026 that units 4 and 5 will be mothballed on 1 March 2027; they stay in the total until then. Sundance’s mothballed gas unit is on the map and left out of the total (TransAlta extended that outage on 2 November 2026). Pickering A is not drawn. Pickering units 5–8 stay visible and are left out of the total: OPG says Unit 6, the last of the four, was taken offline on 30 September 2026, and IESO’s November 2026 capability report shows 0 for PICKERINGB-G5 through G8 on 1 November 2026. These are still estimates.

Mexican plants are two vintages. NACEI Mexico rows are the same 2017 federal snapshot (195 plants, unchanged). Newer and smaller plants come from the CNE historical generation-permit list (CC BY 4.0), file ue_per_gen_hist_sep26.csv, which datos.gob.mx marked updated on 2 November 2026. Permits are kept when they are operating, partly operating, or under construction and the address text contains a coordinate. This pass has 397 plants (202 from CNE). About 69.1 GW is in the capacity tally. Under-construction permits stay visible (48 of them) and are left out of that tally. CNE megawatts are authorized capacity, not a metered summer rating. 618 active permits had no usable coordinate and are omitted. One operating permit, CFE Los Cabos Ume-9, has a truncated coordinate in that file, so it is not placed. Empalme I and Empalme II are both drawn. A permit number that only renames the same site, such as Helios and Tuli, is still one dot.

Plants outside the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Puerto Rico are the Global Integrated Power Tracker, Global Energy Monitor, September 2026 release (CC BY 4.0). This pass keeps 79,293 operating locations in 209 countries and areas, about 7,098 GW of nameplate. Those dots are operating units rolled up to one point per GEM location (95,321 units). The map draws the larger plants first and fills in smaller ones as you zoom in. GEM’s own thresholds still apply, so plants under those cutoffs are missing, and this is not a live fleet. Non-operating rows (55,304: announced, pre-construction, construction, shelved, cancelled, mothballed, retired) are not drawn. Click a country outline (Natural Earth 1:50m, simplified, public domain) to select it, fly there, and open a panel with fuel mix, plant count, nameplate, and the largest plants, the same kind of summary a U.S. state click opens. OpenStreetMap lines at ≥220 kV load with that region. TRACE GRID stays on the North America line files. Zaporizhzhia is still drawn at about 6,000 MW of nameplate. The IAEA reports all six reactors in cold shutdown and not generating. Read that dot as nameplate, not as output.

U.S. transmission lines are a public snapshot, not a live grid. The national view emphasizes higher voltages (≥220 kV). Many segments are older: source dates are commonly 2014–2020, and the newest dates seen in this pack are about September 2024. The HIFLD Open portal went offline in August 2025. The U.S. lines here are that public snapshot, held via the NTAD mirror.

Canadian transmission is OpenStreetMap, not a government voltage layer. This pack keeps 15,598 ways tagged power=line or power=cable with a voltage of at least 69 kV that fall in Canada (snapshot reported by the extract server: 10 August 2026). Ways in the download boxes that sit in the United States are clipped off, so those corridors stay on the HIFLD layer. The broad view draws 6,261 Canadian segments at 220 kV and above, plus HVDC. Locking a province loads 69 kV and above. Lines without a voltage tag are not drawn. Nunavut has no voltage-tagged high-voltage lines in this extract.

Mexican transmission is also OpenStreetMap, in its own folder so it stays separate from the Canadian extract and from HIFLD. This pack keeps 10,110 voltage-tagged ways at 69 kV and above that fall in Mexico (same extract timestamp, 10 August 2026). The North America view draws 2,832 Mexican segments at 220 kV and above, plus HVDC. Locking a state loads 69 kV and above. Lines without a voltage tag are not drawn. Geometries are clipped to Mexico.

Transmission outside the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Puerto Rico is OpenStreetMap as well, in its own folder (public/data/osm/world/) so the ODbL share-alike stays off the EIA, HIFLD, GEM, NACEI, and CNE files. This pack keeps 198,789 segments of power=line and power=cable whose tagged voltage is at least 220 kV (when a way lists several voltages, the highest one is used), about 2.18 million km after simplification. The OSM server reported 10 August 2026, the same vintage as the Canada and Mexico line extracts. The map does not download these shards at startup. Choosing WORLD, or one region, loads that region's lines. By voltage band: 220–287 kV is 113,648 segments (1,065,000 km), 300–449 kV is 51,096 segments (504,000 km), 450–734 kV is 28,133 segments (406,000 km), 735 kV and above is 4,431 segments (106,000 km), and HVDC is 1,481 segments (95,000 km). By region: Europe 66,118 segments, East Asia 74,281, South Asia 22,314, Southeast Asia 9,663, Middle East and Central Asia 8,624, Africa 6,673, Latin America and the Caribbean 7,299, Oceania 3,817. Lines with no voltage tag, and lines under 220 kV, are not drawn. Paths are simplified. The same totals are in public/data/osm/world/manifest.json.

Where it comes from

U.S. power plants. U.S. Energy Information Administration Form EIA-860M, September 2026 preliminary workbook, public domain. The NTAD / ArcGIS mirror Power Plants in the US was still on period 202502 when this pack was built, so it was not the source. EIA-860M monthly inventory.
Canadian power plants. North American Cooperation on Energy Information (NACEI) Power Plants ≥100 MW and Renewable Plants ≥1 MW, Canada rows only, plus Natural Resources Canada CanVec power_plant_0 where the same name, location, and capacity were not already present. Open Government Licence – Canada. Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Canada. Rechecked 5 November 2026: those files are still the 2017 NACEI extract and the July 2019 CanVec archive, and no newer national open-government plant inventory has coordinates and capacity. Operating updates and added plants are from the Global Integrated Power Tracker, Global Energy Monitor, September 2026 release, CC BY 4.0, matched onto this base so smaller plants remain. GIPT · NACEI plants ≥100 MW · NACEI renewables ≥1 MW · CanVec.
Mexican power plants. NACEI Mexico rows from the same ≥100 MW and renewable ≥1 MW workbooks (Open Government Licence – Canada, mostly 2017), plus CNE generation permits, historical list updated 2 November 2026. The Electricidad dataset on datos.gob.mx lists its license as Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. CNE coordinates are parsed from the address. Permits without a usable coordinate are omitted. Import and export permits are omitted.
Rest of world power plants. Global Integrated Power Tracker, Global Energy Monitor, September 2026 release. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Operating units with coordinates, summed to the GEM location. United States, Mexico, and Puerto Rico units are omitted from these world tiles so those countries stay on the EIA and CNE layers. Canada units are omitted from the world tiles too; they are merged onto the Canada layer instead, on top of NACEI and CanVec. GIPT.
U.S. transmission lines. HIFLD-derived electric transmission, from the U.S. DOT/BTS NTAD mirror. Geometry is approximate. These are bulk high-voltage lines, not the distribution wires on a street. NTAD geodata.
Canadian transmission lines. OpenStreetMap, voltage-tagged power lines and cables, in public/data/osm/ca/. © OpenStreetMap contributors. ODbL. Not mixed into the EIA, HIFLD, NACEI, or CNE files. OSM copyright.
Mexican transmission lines. OpenStreetMap, same rules, in public/data/osm/mx/. © OpenStreetMap contributors. ODbL. Clipped to Mexico so U.S. ways stay on the HIFLD layer.
Rest-of-world transmission lines. OpenStreetMap power=line and power=cable at ≥220 kV, in public/data/osm/world/. © OpenStreetMap contributors. ODbL 1.0. Loaded with each WORLD region. United States, Canada, Mexico, and Puerto Rico are omitted. Extract timestamp 10 August 2026. OSM copyright.
Border interties. NACEI Border Crossings: Electric Transmission Lines (2017-08). Points, not routes. Canada–U.S. crossings and 8 Mexico–U.S. crossings (the features in interties_mx.geojson) are both drawn. Open Government Licence – Canada.
State outlines. U.S. Census TIGER. TIGER/Line.
Province and state outlines outside the U.S. Natural Earth 1:10m admin-1, simplified. Public domain. Canadian provinces and Mexican states.
Country outlines. Natural Earth admin-0, public domain. Click targets are the simplified 1:50m countries: click a country the way you click a U.S. state. The world view also draws 1:110m while zoomed out and loads 1:50m pieces for the area on screen (public/data/world/outlines/). United States, Canada, and Mexico keep the more detailed state and province outlines. These files are not OpenStreetMap and are not mixed with the ODbL transmission lines. Natural Earth.
Military bases (when that layer is on). A public NTAD list of DoD installations: location, branch, and approximate area. Not a complete list of federal sites.
Data-center and big-load callouts (when those layers are on). Short markers from public reporting — utility filings, company announcements, and news — used as illustrative context for where large demand has been discussed. Not an exhaustive census of loads, and not measured demand.
Company–plant ownership. Markets names matched to EIA-860 plants. The plant popup and the Markets company card read a slim index of that research. It is an estimate, not a filing. Notes stay at /data/ownership/. Dollar figures are not published there. It is not its own map layer, and it is not a census of every owner.

Basemap tiles are © CARTO and © OpenStreetMap contributors. Dashes that move along lines are visual styling. They are not ISO or RTO telemetry, and they are not live power flow. World high-voltage lines are the OpenStreetMap extract above, not a utility feed.

Left out of the GEM layer on purpose. Rows marked with a TransitionZero id (TZ: or TZ ID in Other IDs) come from the TransitionZero Solar Asset Mapper, August 2025, which is CC BY-NC 4.0. This map is ad-supported and has a paid Pro tier, so those rows are not included: 18,752 operating units, almost all utility-scale solar. A solar plant that also has a non-TransitionZero unit still appears, with only the other units counted. GEM does not include a battery tracker in this release, and plants below each technology’s capacity cutoff are absent.

How the signals work today

Intel Briefs and the state dossier compute simple illustrative, capacity-based signals from the plants and lines on the map. Megawatts are nameplate capacity. These figures are not a power-flow study, not an N-1 contingency analysis, and not a reading of today’s generation or demand.

Firm vs. wind and solar share — dispatchable nameplate (nuclear, coal, gas, petroleum, hydro, geothermal, biomass) beside wind and solar nameplate.
Storage share — battery nameplate compared with wind and solar nameplate.
Plant concentration — how much of a state or province’s nameplate sits in its largest plants.
Extra-high-voltage kilometers per gigawatt — mapped line length at 345 kV and above, including HVDC, relative to in-area nameplate. U.S. lengths are HIFLD. Canadian lengths are OpenStreetMap, clipped to the province.

TRACE GRID is a topology sketch. From a plant it walks mapped transmission segments whose endpoints meet, hop by hop, and lists named substations along that walk. It is not contingency analysis, not a contract path, and not a record of how power is dispatched. Scores anywhere on Map of Grid are educational.

SCAN GRID tallies the plants and gigawatts inside the current map view. It does not score resilience.

Strong points and weak points

Strong and weak points are a resilience and preparedness framing, and only in aggregate — a state, a balancing authority, or a county. Map of Grid does not rank specific substations or lines. The direction below is what the signals are for, including views that are not on the map yet.

Stronger, in aggregate A diverse fuel mix. More high-voltage capacity relative to generation. Battery storage. Recent additions. Redundant interconnects between regions.

Weaker, still illustrative High concentration in a few plants. A thin high-voltage backbone relative to load or generation. A high share of variable renewables with little storage. Regions that public NERC long-term reliability assessments already flag as elevated or high — those flags are context from the public assessments, not a score this map assigns to equipment.

Two further weak-point views are future work, not layers you can turn on today: counties with frequent long outages, and live stress when demand is near seasonal peaks (EIA-930). Later layers may also include another monthly EIA plant refresh, shading drawn from public NERC assessments, hourly balancing-authority stress from EIA-930, weather and hazard overlays, and outage history where the license allows. The map badge names the vintage. It does not make the figures authoritative.

Ethics

Public open data only. Not CEII. Not for targeting critical infrastructure. Not operational advice for utilities, system operators, or planners. Aggregate views are the right scale for any “risk” or “resilience” language on this site.

Markets

The Markets desk is a separate page from the map. It lists a curated set of public companies, private developers, and market operators tied to the U.S. grid. Names, tickers, and sectors stay. The blurbs are research notes. They are not filings, and they can be wrong or out of date. This site does not fetch, display, or redistribute Yahoo Finance prices, charts, or delayed quotes, and it does not link to a Yahoo quote page. A public company row can link to that company’s own website and, for a U.S. listing, to the SEC EDGAR search. The only price drawn here is ERCOT’s own public real-time dashboard, one Texas hub average, and that print can fail. None of this is the EIA plant inventory, an ISO settlement price outside that ERCOT print, or a recommendation to buy or sell.

Credits

U.S. Energy Information Administration — U.S. plant inventory, EIA-860M September 2026 preliminary. Public domain. An estimate EIA can revise.
HIFLD, via the U.S. Department of Transportation / Bureau of Transportation Statistics NTAD mirror — U.S. transmission lines. The NTAD plant service was still period 202502 on 5 November 2026; U.S. plants are the EIA-860M September 2026 workbook instead.
U.S. Census Bureau TIGER — state outlines.
Natural Resources Canada and the North American Cooperation on Energy Information (NACEI) — Canadian plants and Canada–U.S. border crossings. Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Canada.
OpenStreetMap contributors — Canadian, Mexican, and rest-of-world high-voltage lines. ODbL. World lines are ≥220 kV, extract 10 August 2026, kept in their own folder.
Natural Earth — Canadian province and Mexican state outlines, clickable world countries, and admin-0 country outlines (1:110m and 1:50m, public domain) for the world view.
Comisión Nacional de Energía — Mexican generation permits, historical list updated 2 November 2026. The Electricidad dataset license is CC BY 4.0.
Global Integrated Power Tracker, Global Energy Monitor, September 2026 release — power plants outside the United States, Mexico, and Puerto Rico, and the Canada operating updates merged onto NACEI/CanVec. CC BY 4.0. TransitionZero Solar Asset Mapper rows (CC BY-NC 4.0) are excluded.

Map of Grid is an independent project. It is not affiliated with any utility, ISO, RTO, or government agency. Terms · Privacy policy.

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