U.S. electric utilities and grid operators are flagging mounting strain as electricity demand from data centers accelerates. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation has warned of elevated risk of summer electricity shortfalls in 2026 across multiple regions, citing rapid load growth concentrated among large customers.
The scale of revised forecasts is striking. The consulting firm Grid Strategies found that the combined five year summer peak demand growth projected by utilities jumped from 38 gigawatts in 2023 to 128 gigawatts in 2024, a sharp break from the relatively flat demand seen between 2010 and 2020. Much of the increase is concentrated in regions managed by the ERCOT grid in Texas and the PJM grid in the eastern United States, where data center clusters are growing fastest.
Longer term projections continue to rise. BloombergNEF estimates U.S. data center power demand could reach 106 gigawatts by 2035. Total U.S. electricity generation is expected to reach about 4,400 terawatt hours in 2026 and could climb toward 5,200 terawatt hours by 2030, a roughly 24 percent increase from 2023 levels.
Utilities are responding with new generation, transmission upgrades, and long term power agreements, including deals for nuclear and other firm sources to serve data center load. The challenge is timing, as bringing new capacity online can take years while data center construction proceeds quickly, leaving regulators and operators to manage reliability in the interim.
Source: Utility Dive - https://www.utilitydive.com/news/us-data-center-power-demand-could-reach-106-gw-by-2035-bloombergnef/806972/