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Markets · August 22, 2026 · 2 min read

EIA Grid Data Recorded 14.36 Million MWh of Lower-48 Electricity Demand on August 21

By Econ Data Tools Editorial Team

Published August 22, 2026 • Updated August 22, 2026

EIA’s hourly grid-monitor dataset recorded 14.356 million megawatthours of electricity demand across the Lower 48 on August 21, with an hourly high of 710,824 MWh.

CONFIRMED FACTS The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s Hourly Electric Grid Monitor dataset contains 24 hourly demand observations for the United States Lower 48 (respondent US48) on August 21, 2026. Adding the published hourly values gives 14,355,734 megawatthours for that UTC calendar day. The largest hourly observation was 710,824 MWh at 00:00 UTC; the smallest was 483,317 MWh at 10:00 UTC. For context, the same EIA series contains 24 hourly Lower-48 demand observations totaling 14,603,718 MWh on August 20. The series labels its values as megawatthours and its frequency as hourly. ANALYSIS The August 21 total is an aggregation of the 24 hourly observations returned for the Lower 48. It is a useful description of recorded demand in that dataset for that UTC day, but it is not an estimate of retail electricity sales, a price series, or a measure of generation capacity. The lower total versus August 20 is a comparison of adjacent daily aggregations, not evidence of a causal change in economic activity or weather conditions. UNKNOWNS AND LIMITS The cited records do not identify the drivers of hourly demand, such as temperature, outages, customer behavior, or regional transmission constraints. The US48 aggregation excludes Alaska and Hawaii and does not provide state-level detail in these rows. EIA data can be revised; this brief reports the values returned from the public API when checked on August 22, 2026. Summing hourly MWh observations should not be interpreted as a simultaneous system load or as a forecast.

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