The critical issue of power supply is taking center stage as data centers and other large-scale industrial loads compete for a limited supply of grid electricity. In a dramatic change from years of flat growth in electrical demand, annual utility forecasts filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) now show dramatic growth in power demand across all regions of the country. By 2030, FERC forecasts that peak demand will grow by 60 gigawatts (GW). Further complicating this growth projection is another FERC forecast indicating that an additional 140 GW of capacity will be needed by 2030 to replace planned retirements of coal-fired and other baseload generation.
Other forecasts offer a similar outlook. According to a recent report by Goldman Sachs, U.S. load growth will see a 2.4% compounded annual growth rate through 2030, driven prominently by the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) and growth of cryptocurrency, translating to an expected 160% increase in power demand from data centers.
Another forecast from the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) aligns with those findings. According to EPRI, the growth in data center developments is expected to result in a total load of 35 GW by 2030, consuming approximately 9% of total U.S. power generating capacity. This represents a staggering rate of growth from the 4% of grid capacity consumed by data centers today.
Additional electricity demand growth is predicted to come as new manufacturing plants move back to the U.S., and as heavy industrial sectors like mining and oil and gas electrify equipment and processes. A number of large oil and gas producers with operations in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) region are moving quickly to electrify critical operations either by requesting grid interconnections or by building their own on-site generation and distribution systems.