Which state makes the most electricity by burning oil? 🛢️
1Guess
Which states make the most electricity by burning oil in a year? Tap them most-to-least.
Tapping assigns 1→4 in order
I bet… Texas — that's the oil state, right?
2Answer
The real order is…
It's Hawaii — the islands! — with about 4.72× as much oil-burning electricity as #2 Michigan. Alaska is #4 and big oil state Texas only #9.
📚 BackgroundThe surprise champion is Hawaii, about 4.7× as much as #2 Michigan. No pipeline and no power line reaches the islands from the mainland, so most of their fuel arrives by ship — and oil makes more than 70% of Hawaii's electricity. Every other state's oil number is far smaller, even the big oil states: Alaska is #4 and Texas only #9.(U.S. EIA, electricity data)
Note: net electricity from petroleum (oil) burned in power plants, in billion kilowatt-hours (kWh), 2024, U.S. EIA. All 50 states burn at least a little oil for electricity; the eight biggest are shown here.
U.S. EIA: net generation from petroleum by state, 2024 (2026-07-26) — Official published values (the committed raw file holds EIA's megawatt-hour value for every generating state; the display converts to billion kWh).
↳ On eia.gov/electricity/data/state, open 'Annual generation by state and energy source', filter YEAR 2024, TYPE OF PRODUCER 'Total Electric Power Industry', ENERGY SOURCE 'Petroleum'.