Experts project energy demand will rise at unprecedented rates, increasing 21.5% in the next decade. Utilities are scrambling to connect new energy sources to the grid to meet that demand — including new fossil fuel generators, such as natural gas combustion turbines.
But a recent study from Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment found that utilities can already handle the demand growth from data centers for most of the year without adding new energy generation.
“Our system is prepared to serve that highest peak,” said Dalia Patino-Echeverri, an associate professor at the Duke Nicholas School of the Environment. “That means the rest of the year, the system is underutilized.”
Federal regulators forecast 128 gigawatts of peak load growth by 2030. Duke Energy plans to build 3.6 gigawatts of natural gas generation by the early 2030s. However, current federal regulation mean those gas generators would run less than half the time unless the utility implements carbon capture technology.
David Neal, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, said even with federal rules, the generators wouldn’t serve ratepayers to their fullest potential.
“Under Duke’s long-term plan, those new power plants would run less than 40% of the time within a decade anyway,” Neal said.
He said that meant doing more to implement the carbon-free resources that state regulators have approved.
Patino-Echeverri modeled U.S. energy demand hour by hour throughout the year. She expects electrical demand to increase as homes and transportation electrify and new data centers come online; however, utilities don’t need to build as much new energy generation.
They just need to shift when those power requests happen during a couple of hours in the year.
“If these loads were able to reduce consumption at those critical times, then we could accommodate them without triggering the need for this new generation or transmission,” Patino-Echeverri said.
Utilities have predicted an unprecedented growth in energy demand over the next decade. The last time the U.S. scaled up energy generation in a comparable amount of time was during the mid-20th century. But, back then, utilities weren’t concerned about the effects of climate change even if they knew about them during part of that time.
Patino-Echeverri said electrical demand would increase as homes and transportation electrify and new data centers come online. Utilities in the U.S. face other unique challenges, such as demands for greater reliability, less available land, and labor shortages, but they don’t need to build an equivalent amount of new energy generation. They just need to shift when folks draw power.
Peak load refers to the time of the year when utilities must produce the most energy. That measurement determines how much total power the grid needs at any given time, plus a little extra to ensure reliability. The system is built to handle the largest load, meaning most days it has more power available than needed
Peak load is also very short, lasting only a few hours. Patino-Echeverri’s research shows that if U.S. utilities can curtail just 0.25% of demand during that time, it would free up 76 gigawatts of power. Duke Energy Carolinas and Progress could free up 3.7 and 1.8 gigawatts of power if they displaced 1% of that peak load. That’s the equivalent of adding over five nuclear power plants to the grid.
The study didn’t test solutions, but Patino-Echeverri said utilities have a few options. Cooling can account for up to 40% of a data center’s energy consumption. If data centers can cool more in the middle of the day, when the sun is shining directly on solar panels, they can reduce demand during peak hours when fewer renewable resources are available.
If tech companies — for example — strategically distribute data centers, shift cooling times, and manage processing speed during peak hours, utilities won’t have to rush to supply as much energy.
“We shouldn’t use these projections of unprecedented low growth as an excuse to decide not to retire all coal-fired power plants,” Patino-Echeverri said. “We shouldn’t rush to build a lot of natural gas unless necessary.”