Utilities pledge $1.4T

U.S. utilities now expect to spend at least $1.4 trillion through 2030, as electricity demand from data centers pushes the grid into a new building cycle. (powerlines.org) The estimate comes from PowerLines, which reviewed recent earnings calls and capital plans from 51 investor-owned utilities. Those companies serve about 250 million customers, and their five-year spending plans are more than 21 percent above the $1.1 trillion outlined a year earlier. (powerlines.org) CBS reported that a majority of the utilities in the review identified data centers as a top driver of capital spending. The money is slated for power plants, transmission lines and local distribution wires as developers race to add computing capacity for artificial intelligence. (cbsnews.com) A data center is a warehouse of servers, storage devices and networking gear that runs cloud software and artificial intelligence models. U.S. data centers used about 176 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2023, or roughly 4.4 percent of total U.S. power consumption, according to a Congressional Research Service report. (congress.gov) That load is rising fast. The Electric Power Research Institute said in May 2024 that data centers could consume as much as 9 percent of U.S. electricity generation by 2030, and the Department of Energy repeated that estimate in its data-center guidance. (epri.com, energy.gov) Utilities are not building only for artificial intelligence. E&E News said the same spending wave is also tied to aging infrastructure, storm hardening and broader load growth, including manufacturing and electrification. (eenews.net) The financing question lands on customers and regulators. PowerLines said residential customers could bear nearly half of the planned spending, while Deloitte found average customer electricity bills rose 23 percent from 2019 to 2024 in nominal terms. (powerlines.org, deloitte.com) Utilities and grid planners have warned that the problem is not just total electricity, but where and when it is needed. A single large data center can use as much electricity as 50,000 homes, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Energy Initiative said, which turns site selection and transmission access into business decisions for technology companies. (energy.mit.edu) That is why the spending surge is showing up in earnings calls before many projects break ground. The next fights will play out in state rate cases, transmission approvals and local debates over who pays to connect the next wave of server farms to the grid. (politicopro.com, reuters.com)