Energy flow in the US
The total estimated energy (not just electricity) consumption in the USA in 2016 was 97.3 quadrillion BTU (quads).[1]
Note that 66.4% of that energy is lost as heat or in transmission. A similar figure (68.0%) applies to electricity generation alone, which remains dominated by thermal production (natural gas, coal, and nuclear), in which only around one-third of the energy contained in the source is converted to electrical energy.
It should be noted that production from intermittent sources, i.e., wind and solar, represents only a fraction of the turbine or panel’s capacity. A wind turbine, for example, generates electricity at an annual average rate of 25%–35% of its capacity.[2] And it generates at or above its average rate only 40% of the time.[3][4]