US Power Grid Map: The Electricity Network From Orbit

74,190 transmission line records, 19,762 substations and 13,640 power plants, rendered as one orbital image of the contiguous US grid. Free high-resolution download.

August 12, 20265 min read

Reading guide added October 19, 2026. The original August rendering is unchanged.

Wide orbital rendering of the contiguous United States on a curved, dark Earth, with mapped transmission lines glowing across the country, bright points marking substations and power plants, faint state boundaries, mountain relief, and a pale atmospheric rim. — 5,760 × 2,880 PNG · 11.2 MBClick the image for a full-screen preview.

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74,190
positive-voltage line records: ≥138 kV
reported substation threshold: 19,762
substation records: 13,640
operating plant locations

This is a picture of where the US power grid is built, not how it is running. The brightest lines are the ones with the highest reported voltage, and the point lights are mapped substations and operating power plants. Brightness combines source attributes with overlap, atmosphere and bloom, so it isn’t a measure of power flow.

The render draws 74,190 positive-voltage line records from HIFLD, 19,762 substation records with a reported maximum voltage of at least 138 kV, and 13,640 plant locations from EIA-860. A record isn’t necessarily a unique circuit or a length of wire. The reading guide below uses the renderer’s actual color stops and point sizes; compare the western corridors, central mesh and eastern concentrations as patterns in the portrayal, not as quantities.

Renderer legend: voltage color anchors, plant fuel colors, nameplate-capacity size bands and the distinction between infrastructure and operating state. — Voltage colors and point sizes, as used by the renderer.

Western corridors: detail from the original orbital rendering — **Western corridors.** Long mapped corridors across a broad geography. They don’t show transfer capability or current loading.

Central network: detail from the original orbital rendering — **Central network.** Overlapping linework and point lights form a mesh whose density depends on the geometry and the perspective.

Eastern concentrations: detail from the original orbital rendering — **Eastern concentrations.** Dense overlapping infrastructure turns bright under bloom. Use the source records for counts, not the glow.

Explore the data behind the image.

Open each source in the Ask the Grid catalog to inspect its coverage, fields, provenance, and live sample.

Transmission sourceHIFLD geometry and reported voltage Substation sourceHIFLD location and reported maximum voltage Plant sourceEIA-860 generator records grouped by plant Explore the live grid mapCurrent operating data with source clocks

Method and sources+

Transmission uses the August 5, 2026 HIFLD snapshot, positive reported voltage, and the contiguous-US bounds. Geometry is simplified with a 0.018-degree tolerance (about 2 km), which yields 409,360 rendered segments and keeps a continental view rather than survey detail. Values as low as 3 kV stay in because inclusion follows the source dataset, so the layer isn’t a definition of bulk transmission.

Voltage anchors are 3, 69, 138, 230, 345 and 765 kV, with color, width and opacity interpolated between them. Plant points group the April 2026 EIA-860 operating-generator snapshot by plant ID, sum nameplate capacity, and take the fuel group of the largest generator, in bands of under 250 MW, 250 to under 1,000 MW and 1,000 MW or more. Those are nameplate groups, not dispatched output.

Terrain comes from Mapterhorn Terrarium tiles, state and national topology from us-atlas, and the land-water mask from Natural Earth. The perspective, atmosphere, lighting and bloom are visual treatment. The image doesn’t show dispatch, outages, constraints, loading or interconnection rights.

Image copyright belongs to Parisi Labs; contact Ask the Grid to republish the render. The public datasets keep their own terms.

Mapterhorn terrain attribution Natural Earth