A recent survey of the plans of U.S. electricity utilities for meeting projected future demand indicates that they are looking to build twice as much natural gas capacity as they had anticipated just 18 months earlier. The reason? Data centers. These warehouses full of computers that form the backbone of the internet are multiplying rapidly as companies are adding power-hungry servers for artificial intelligence.
Data centers used less than 2% of U.S. electricity prior to 2018. They consumed 4.4% in 2023. By 2028, they are projected to use anywhere between 6.7 and 12%. While overall electricity demand had been relatively flat for the past 20 years, now the power grid is scrambling to keep up.
The long-term plans of utilities have been favoring renewables for a while. Previous industry-wide projections had 258 gigawatts of new wind and solar versus 102 gigawatts of new natural gas plants through 2035. These plans showed that wind and solar could overtake natural gas as the country’s largest source of electricity by that year. But newer plans adding additional generating capacity have mostly added new gas and very little renewables.
Utilities are leaning heavily on natural gas in part due to the inertia of regulatory actions that define the rate-setting process. The grid is simply not set up to adapt to new technology and to deal with the unprecedented changes that data centers bring about.
Ultimately, the continuing reliance on natural gas will be an unfortunate burden on the consumer and on the environment.
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Riding the High From Data Centers, the Grid Cannot Kick Its Gas Habit
Photo, posted January 23, 2023, courtesy of Aileen Devlin / Jefferson Lab via Flickr.
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