Capacity Factor

Capacity factor is how much a power plant or fleet actually generated over a year, divided by what it would have generated running at full output every hour of that year. A factor near 100% would mean full output non stop; solar and wind are physically capped well below that because the sun and wind are not always available, while nuclear and coal fleets can run much closer to it when not held back by maintenance or economics.

Worked Example

Germany had 77.8 GW of wind capacity in 2025 and generated 132 TWh from it, a capacity factor of 19.4%. See the full figures.

Cite this page

APA 7

World Power Monitor. (2026). Capacity Factor: What It Means. https://worldpowermonitor.com/glossary/capacity-factor/

Plain text

World Power Monitor. Capacity Factor: What It Means. Data as of 2026-09-21. https://worldpowermonitor.com/glossary/capacity-factor/

BibTeX

@misc{wpm_glossary_capacity_factor_2026,
  title = {{Capacity Factor: What It Means}},
  author = {{World Power Monitor}},
  year = {2026},
  note = {Data as of 2026-09-21.},
  url = {https://worldpowermonitor.com/glossary/capacity-factor/}
}

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Capacity Factor

Worked Example

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