They can do this by powering down their operations, powering up their own generation or storage, or paying other users on the system to reduce consumption. Increased U.S. load growth from data centers and manufacturing is expected to put stress on grids across the country, which could lead to blackouts if severe weather https://www.ourbow.com/hybrid-cars-electric-cars-and-greenwashing/ hits. The North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) indicated in its Winter Reliability Assessment that increased demand from data centers and increased electrification of transportation and heating could result in blackouts if severe weather were to hit. PJM, the country’s largest grid operator, is meanwhile weighing new rules that would require incoming data centers to curb their impact on overall capacity costs. Georgia Power is seeking regulatory permission to build gas-fired power capacity to meet load forecasts due to proposed data centers in Georgia.
However, utilities face challenges and risks that could affect their spending plans, including growing backlash from ratepayers, regulators and elected officials. New generation capacity takes years to build, but large commercial and industrial customers want power now. The administration has also introduced new layers of approval for renewable energy projects, revoked previously issued permits and frozen construction on all offshore wind farms. Energy Information Administration revised down its generation growth forecast for 2026 “based on how much large load electricity demand has come online so far this year … Some utilities that introduced more stringent interconnection rules for data centers have already seen their large load queues shrink by 50% or more. There are already signs that data center demand will grow more slowly than expected.
“If a hyperscale data center can provide flexibility in the periods we need it … it’ll get connected faster.” The requirement for traditional data centers to supply uninterrupted compute means they have previously been https://angliannews.com/world/page/2 treated by grid operators as uncompromising sources of power demand. An EU study found that, by applying “grid-enhancing technologies” like DLR, operators could increase overall network capacity by as much as 40 percent, in theory clearing room for data centers and other large sources of power demand to connect. One of the most promising options, according to National Grid, is a sensor-based system called dynamic line rating (DLR), whereby the amount of energy directed down a power line is tuned to local weather conditions.
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- EEI notes that while the gas-related infrastructure category covers natural gas delivery and pipeline infrastructure, it does not cover gas-fired electric generation.
- Data from the Electric Power Research Institute shows that data centers now account for about 5% of U.S. electricity demand, but could triple by 2035.
- Headquartered in Dongguan, China, the BESS provider specializes in modular, string-based, all-in-one cabinet solutions.
- The cleared capacity included about 110 MW of new generation and 755 MW from uprates to existing or planned generation.
- Nearly 91 GW of new capacity was under construction as of early 2025, with another 488 GW proposed through 2029, dominated by solar (216 GW), energy storage (152 GW), and wind (63 GW) projects, according to EEI’s Financial Review 2024.
Grid Strategies attributes much of the higher estimate in 2025 to data center development, which it expects to account for 90 gigawatts of the new peak demand growth. Peak load growth in the United States is expected to increase by 166 gigawatts over the next five years, according to Grid Strategies — over four times higher than the 2023 estimate of 38 gigawatts and over double the 2024 estimate of 64 gigawatts. The five-year forecast of U.S. utility peak load growth has increased from 24 gigawatts in 2022 to 166 gigawatts in 2025 — by nearly a factor of seven in just three years. Greater demand-side participation and the expansion of utility-scale battery storage are http://articlesss.com/the-waste-exchange-what-are-refuse-derived-fuels-rdf/ additional levers for enhancing system flexibility and managing congestion, which are addressed in detail in the subsequent chapter on Flexibility. A lack of grid capacity is emerging as a critical bottleneck in many regions, driving higher levels of congestion and slowing the deployment of new electricity generation, storage and demand. As the electric power sector looks to address rising power demand from data centers, nuclear energy appears to be emerging as an attractive option.
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At the same time, 112 GW of retirements are scheduled through 2029—about half from coal and one-third from natural gas (56 GW and 37 GW, respectively). EEI’s projected pipeline of 578 GW of planned and proposed capacity from 2025 through 2029—which, as mentioned above, represents nearly half of the grid’s current capacity—will be dominated by solar, storage, and wind. By contrast, natural gas additions fell sharply to 2,428 MW, down 79% yearly, due to a “growing backlog of gas turbine orders.” New plants represented 37% of the year’s total, expansions accounted for 60% and the remaining 3% were rerates, the report notes. Several commissions also advanced resilience planning requirements, such as Texas’s first statewide mandate for utility resilience plans, and expanded low- and moderate-income customer protections to address affordability and potential cross-subsidization concerns. State-level regulation remained active in 2024 as utilities sought to recover costs amid rising load growth and infrastructure spending. Generally, operating income rose 2.4% to $88.6 billion, while net income increased 4.5% to $54.6 billion.
Stress-Test the Future
Truckloads of Tesla Batteries Keep Getting Stolen Before They Even Leave the Factory In a bid to dismiss a lawsuit over xAI’s polluting gas turbines, the Justice Department claimed the company is integral to military operations—including the Iran War. “We need to connect these data centers as soon as possible to get that advantage.” “Our plan over the next five years to double the amount of energy that flows over the network requires intervention—it requires build of overhead lines,” says David Adkins, head of network architecture and innovation at National Grid. Much of the network capacity growth required to accommodate AI data centers t will ultimately need to come from newly built infrastructure. National Grid estimates that in the past five years it has expanded network capacity by 16 gigawatts through a combination of grid-enhancing technologies and replacing old lines with new, more conductive ones.
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Electric companies are expected to make massive investments to modernize the grid to address growing electricity demand. Utilities will pair firm capacity with AI-driven operations, flexible planning, and innovative finance to sustain affordability and reliability under stress. Power companies are building computing infrastructure that blends edge, cloud, and on-premises capabilities (figure 2).35 Edge AI—from drones to substation sensors—enables millisecond-level decisions. In 2026, performance-based interconnection could increasingly tie queue priority to telemetry and flexibility.
- One influential study from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that while retail electricity prices increased sharply in nominal terms, the average masked substantial differences between states.
- The grid operator said it called on pre-emergency demand response for the Baltimore Gas and Electric, Dominion and Potomac Electric Power Co. areas on Monday to address local transmission constraints and to preserve the run-time of generators that will be needed for the hot weather and higher electricity demand expected on Tuesday and Wednesday.
- Peak load growth in the United States is expected to increase by 166 gigawatts over the next five years, according to Grid Strategies — over four times higher than the 2023 estimate of 38 gigawatts and over double the 2024 estimate of 64 gigawatts.
- Today’s announcement continues the mission of the GRIP Program under the SPARK funding opportunity, focusing on the rapid deployment of reconductoring and other ATTs that expand transfer capability, strengthen reliability and resource adequacy, and reduce costs for consumers, all while making use of existing rights of way.
- Utilities are adopting DLR and other GETs to help unlock new transmission capacity by increasing line ratings, which can accelerate the interconnection of abundant energy sources and reduce costs by maximizing the performance of existing transmission lines.
- “Our plan over the next five years to double the amount of energy that flows over the network requires intervention—it requires build of overhead lines,” says David Adkins, head of network architecture and innovation at National Grid.
- While one utility discounts a 22.8 GW pipeline of prospective customers before building its load forecast, another models 16 hypothetical 100 MW to 500 MW customers to test where transmission may be needed.
- Utilities also benefit from a modernized grid, including improved security, reduced peak loads, increased integration of renewables, and lower operational costs.
- As developing new data centers to power artificial intelligence (AI) becomes critically important, opportunity arises for industries to collaborate to support evolving infrastructure demands.
In 2025, 53 GW of new capacity was added to the grid, the largest capacity installation in a single year since 2002. Solar power makes up 51% of the planned 2026 capacity additions, followed by battery storage at 28% and wind at 14%. Based in Raleigh, North Carolina, Snider covers how hyperscalers, utilities, chipmakers, and infrastructure providers are responding to the rapid rise of AI workloads and global compute demand. Shane Snider is Senior News Writer at Data Center Knowledge, covering AI infrastructure, hyperscale data centers, cloud platforms, and the power and energy systems driving modern compute expansion.