Overview

• McKinsey estimates data‑center power demand will grow 17% annually worldwide through 2030, accelerating to 25% per year in the United States.
• U.S. data centers could account for more than 14% of national electricity use by 2030, which would be over triple their 2023 share.
• Utilities project roughly 60 gigawatts of additional load tied to data centers this decade, and Louisiana regulators approved $5 billion in cost recovery for three natural‑gas plants to serve a Meta facility.
• Some campuses are adding on‑site generation to meet near‑term needs, including a natural‑gas plant powering the Stargate site in Abilene, Texas that will host Oracle and OpenAI servers.
• DOE figures show data centers used 4.4% of U.S. electricity in 2023 and could reach 7–12% by 2028, as rising rack power densities and heavy cooling and water needs strain grids and costs, with recent analyses recording sharp wholesale price spikes near major clusters.