America’s power system, a patchwork of regional networks and utilities, is being strained by data centers, new factories, and electric vehicles. Even before the artificial-intelligence boom of the past two years, the grid was under stress from extreme weather and a growing amount of intermittent renewable energy.
Schneider Electric forecasts that rising peak demand will put growing pressure on so-called reserve margins – the buffer of extra power supplies available to meet surges during extreme weather or a cyberattack. Drawing on those emergency sources to meet routine demand threatens grid reliability and increases vulnerabilities, Salo said.
In simple terms, Salo likened a reserve margin to maintaining a minimum level of savings in a bank account for unexpected hardship. In three years, the US will have to regularly dip into those reserves and may not have enough left to cushion against severe events, she said.
Across much of the US, electric demand growth had been stagnant before the dawn of AI – and had been expected to ramp up gradually with the increasing electrification of the economy. But data centers are now rapidly changing the dynamic. BloombergNEF forecasts power demand from data centers will double by 2035, accounting for almost 9% of all US demand and pushing the grid closer to its limit.
