Overview
- NERC’s winter assessment reports peak demand is roughly 20 GW higher than last year while net new resources total about 9.4 GW, including 11 GW of batteries and 8 GW of demand response with wind contributions marked down by 14 GW.
- Areas at elevated risk under extreme cold include New England, the Carolinas, parts of the Tennessee Valley, most of Texas, the Pacific Northwest, several Rockies states, and Canada’s Maritimes.
- Grid operators say data centers are lengthening peak periods with round‑the‑clock loads, and slow interconnection timelines are pushing more facilities toward on‑site fossil generation for near‑term reliability.
- Gartner projects global datacenter electricity use could double to about 980 TWh by 2030, with AI‑optimized servers accounting for a growing share of consumption and most incremental demand.
- Regional studies highlight concentrated impacts, with California estimates showing datacenter electricity use and emissions nearly doubling since 2019 and Irish data centers consuming about 22% of national metered electricity in 2024 with potential to reach 30% by 2030.