#Electricity demand

Oregon regulators approved a new large-load tariff for Portland General Electric that shifts more infrastructure and interconnection costs to big data centers and ties approvals to clean-energy rules.

A Utility Dive opinion argues that power companies should treat the AI data center surge as a systemwide grid modernization challenge, not a queue of isolated projects.

A new NEMA forecast says annual U.S. electricity consumption will rise more than 55% by 2050, with data centers driving a major share of near-term growth and electric transportation surging over the longer run.

Commercial electricity sales in Virginia have jumped far faster than almost anywhere else in the country, with federal data pointing to data centers as the main force behind the rise.

NERC has issued a rare Level 3 alert after data centers unexpectedly dropped load or rapidly oscillated demand, warning that computational loads pose immediate reliability risks for the power grid.

ISO New England now expects annual electricity consumption to grow about 9% by 2035, a lower outlook tied to more conservative assumptions about electric vehicle and heat pump adoption.

Southern Company says data centers drove a 42% jump in power use and helped push first-quarter retail sales growth to the highest recent first-quarter increase the utility has seen.

As nuclear power gains political and commercial momentum, the unresolved question of permanent waste storage is becoming harder to defer.

The International Energy Agency says 2025 delivered the largest global growth in solar ever observed for any energy source, with renewables outpacing demand growth and battery storage surging alongside them.

New modeling suggests households with rooftop solar may use more electricity after installation, adding as much as 5.1% to Europe’s total demand by midcentury and complicating grid planning.

A new outlook says renewables should keep gaining share in North America through 2035, but political volatility, grid execution, and surging electricity demand are making the transition less predictable.

PJM wants a one-time two-phase procurement to bring nearly 15 gigawatts of new resources onto the system, reflecting how fast-rising large-load demand is colliding with concerns about reliability and affordability.

A new federal snapshot cited by Utility Dive says 50 gigawatts of data centers were online at the end of 2025, with the Midcontinent Independent System Operator region posting the fastest growth since 2020.