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President and CEO of Rayburn Electric Cooperative David Naylor weighs in on a report that data centers and crypto miners could cause a strain on the power grid.
The world, particularly the United States, is projected to see a massive jump in data center and artificial intelligence demand for electricity by 2030, per a recently released International Energy Agency (IEA) report.
The IEA projected in its "Energy and AI" report that global electricity demand from data centers will hit about 945 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2030, a nearly 128% increase from 415 TWh of power they used in 2024.
"AI will be the most significant driver of this increase, with electricity demand from AI-optimized data centers projected to more than quadruple by 2030," the IEA said.
Rows of servers are shown at Facebook’s Fort Worth data center in Texas. A Dallas company plans a data center near Benbrook. (Paul Moseley/Fort Worth Star-Telegram/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
According to the report, electricity demand from data centers in the U.S. will be the source of "nearly half" of the anticipated doubling of data center-driven power demand that the world is projected to see by that year.
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In the U.S., data centers will need about 240 TWh in 2030. The IEA said that would mark a 130% jump from the country’s current data center power consumption levels.
People walk the hallways at the Equinix data center in Ashburn, Va., on May 9, 2024. (Amanda Andrade-Rhoades for the Washington Post via Getty Images)
Electricity consumption from data centers will notch a roughly 15%-per-year increase between 2024 and 2030, according to the IEA.
Still, less than 10% of the world’s overall growth in electricity demand by 2030 will come from data centers’ power needs, the report said. And of all the global electricity consumption anticipated in 2030, the IEA said data centers will account for "just under" 3%.
However, there is good news in the report. Energy companies will utilize AI to help with efficiency and operations. According to the report, "AI is already being deployed by energy companies to transform and optimize energy and mineral supply, electricity generation and transmission, and energy consumption. There are numerous objectives in play, including reducing costs, enhancing supply, extending asset lifetimes, reducing downtime and lowering emissions."
Renewable energy sources will "meet nearly half of the additional demand, followed by natural gas and coal, with nuclear starting to play an increasingly important role towards the end of this decade and beyond," the IEA said.
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The report linked the expected prominence of renewables and natural gas in addressing data centers’ projected increase in electricity demand by 2030 to their "cost-competitivess and availability in key markets."
In the U.S., the IEA projects natural gas will see an increase of more than 130 TWh each year through 2030 in power generation for data centers.
By 2030, some 110 TWh more of electricity generation from renewables for data centers will become available, the report said.
The IEA predicts renewables and small modular nuclear reactors will bring down the "need for additional natural gas-fired generation" after 2030 "so that by 2035 low-emissions sources account for over half of the United States’ data centre electricity supply mix."
Small modular reactors are a type of advanced nuclear reactor.
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They "can produce a large amount of low-carbon electricity but [are] physically smaller than a conventional reactor," according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
The IEA said small modular reactors are expected to go live "around 2030."