Study estimates datacenters could take 9% of US power production by 2030

Datacenters could consume anywhere from 4.6% to 9.1% of US electricity generation by 2030, highlighting the need for improved efficiency, coordination and modeling, an industry analysis shows.

The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) in a May 28 white paper, "Powering Intelligence: Analyzing Artificial Intelligence and Data Center Energy Consumption," outlined four load growth scenarios based on potential electricity consumption by US datacenters from 2023, when the sector accounted for an estimated 4% of total load, to 2030.

EPRI also highlighted three "essential strategies" needed to manage this growth and maintain system reliability.

In a low-growth scenario, the analysis predicted annual load growth rate of 3.7%, with datacenters representing 4.6% of 2030 electricity consumption. This scenario assumed "limited public uptake of AI tools, coupled with high gains in data center efficiency," according to EPRI.

Under a moderate-growth scenario, datacenters were forecast to have a 5% annual growth rate and represent 5% of US electricity consumption.

The high and highest scenarios forecast 10% and 15% annual load growth, respectively, with datacenters ultimately representing 6.8% to 9.1% of the nation's electricity consumption by the end of this decade.

The highest scenario is based on a "rapid expansion of AI applications and limited efficiency gains," EPRI wrote.

To support the proliferation of these newer technologies, EPRI pointed to the need for better datacenter efficiency and flexibility; improved coordination between datacenter developers and electricity providers on power needs, supply and constraints; and stronger modeling tools that can help plan longer-term grid investments to accommodate this growth with limited impact on customers and grid reliability.

As of March, EPRI counted 10,655 datacenters worldwide, with about half in the US.

About 80% of US datacenter load in 2023 was concentrated in 15 states, EPRI said, led by Virginia and Texas. "Demands for highly reliable power, requests for power from new, non-emitting generation sources, and short lead times for connection — of two years or less — can create local and regional electricity supply challenges."

In 2023, EPRI said datacenters consumed about one-quarter of Virginia's electricity. North Dakota was next-highest at more than 15%, with Iowa, Nebraska and Oregon all above 11%.

"With evenly spread growth, the [datacenter] share of load in Virginia increases to almost 50% in the higher growth scenario and to 36% when averaged across the four scenarios," EPRI wrote. "The shares in other states vary widely with five other states projected to approach 20% or more of electricity demand under these simplified assumptions. In reality, load growth is unlikely to be spread evenly."

Feeding the demand

Utilities throughout the US have zeroed in on the opportunities and challenges that datacenters provide, especially as it relates to load growth and generation investments.

Northern Indiana "is a region ripe for datacenter development" with the infrastructure, land and policy to support the technology industry, NiSource Inc. President and CEO Lloyd Yates said during the company's first-quarter earnings call.

"The datacenter developers are talking to a lot of people. I think that they are looking for utilities or energy companies that can move quickly. We want to be one of those," Yates said.

Dominion Energy Inc. serves the largest datacenter market in the world, in Loudoun County, Va., through utility subsidiary Dominion Energy Virginia.

"In aggregate, we've connected 94 datacenters with over 4 GW of capacity over the last approximately five years," Dominion Chair, President and CEO Robert Blue said during the company's first-quarter earnings call.

"For some context, historically, a single datacenter typically had a demand of 30 MW or greater," Blue added. "However, we're now receiving individual requests for demand of 60 [MW] to 90 MW or greater, and it hasn't stopped there. We get regular requests to support larger datacenter campuses that include multiple buildings and require total capacity ranging from 300 MW to as many as several gigawatts."

In the US, most datacenter facilities are hyperscalers and colocation centers, according to EPRI.

Outside of Northern Virginia, EPRI pointed to the Dallas-Fort Worth, Silicon Valley, Chicago, New York Tri-State and Atlanta regions as those showing construction activity "projected to lead to a 50% or more increase in power demands."

The International Energy Agency projected US datacenter electricity consumption to grow from 200 TWh in 2022 to about 260 TWh in 2026 and account for 6% of total power demand. Boston Consulting Group projected that datacenters could represent 7.5% of US electricity consumption by 2030.

The emergence of AI technologies is also increasing demand for electricity, EPRI said, citing generative AI models such as ChatGPT.

"At 2.9 watt-hours (Wh) per ChatGPT request, AI queries are estimated to require 10 times the electricity of traditional Google queries, which use about 0.3 Wh each," EPRI wrote.