Form EIA-860 records completed generation additions by year

Interconnection queue totals are frequently cited as though they described a pipeline. They describe requests. The Energy Information Administration's Form EIA-860 annual generator inventory and the monthly generator inventory that accompanies it describe units that exist, are under construction, or are planned with reported dates.

Comparing the two datasets over a common period is the standard method for estimating queue attrition. It is imperfect because the populations are not identical, and because a project may appear in both under different identifiers, but it is reproducible from public files.

For a planner, the useful output is not the headline attrition rate but its variation by technology and region. Storage, solar and gas convert at materially different rates, and those differences are stable enough to inform planning assumptions.

For an investor, the same comparison bounds the credibility of any developer's stated pipeline.

This section will maintain the comparison as a standing tracker rather than as a one-off calculation, with each release date recorded.