Staff/Wire reports The growth of data centers and artificial intelligence across the U.S. will result in increased demand for electricity in the next few years, and the Department of Energy (DOE) predicts it will triple by 2028. It also claims renewable energy will be able to meet the demand.
Demand already tripled in the past decade, according to the DOE, which released the 2024 Report on U.S. Data Center Energy Use produced by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. It outlines the energy use of data centers from 2014 to 2028.
In its report, Berkeley Lab confirmed that electricity consumption of U.S. data centers is growing “at an accelerating rate.” Research determined a compound annual growth rate of approximately 7% from 2014 to 2018, increasing to 18% between 2018 and 2023, and then ranging from 13% to 27% between 2023 and 2028.
“This surge in data center electricity demand, however, should be understood in the context of the much larger electricity demand that is expected to occur over the next few decades from a combination of electric vehicle adoption, onshoring of manufacturing, hydrogen utilization, and the electrification of industry and buildings,” Berkeley Lab emphasized.
The report found that data centers consumed about 4.4% of total U.S. electricity in 2023 but are expected to consume approximately 6.7% to 12% of total U.S. electricity by 2028. Researchers indicate that total data center electricity usage climbed from 58 terawatt hours in 2014 to 176 TWh in 2023, and estimate an increase between 325 to 580 TWh by 2028.
One terawatt-hour is equal to one trillion watt-hours, or one billion kilowatt-hours.
DOE has anticipated this growing demand trend — it reflects robust industrial investments in America and national leadership on technology innovation. The department continues to develop advanced technologies and leverage its resources “to meet rising electricity demand in the United States while maintaining a reliable, affordable, and secure national energy system.”
The United States “has seen an incredible investment in artificial intelligence and other breakthrough technologies over the last decade and a half, and this industrial renaissance has created greater demand on our domestic energy supply,” said U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer M. Granholm.
“We can meet this growth with clean energy,” she said. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s report on data center energy usage “crucially underscores why the Department of Energy has developed and is deploying technologies to enable continued economic growth across American industries.”
DOE is leveraging its resources to meet increasing electricity demand while improving critical infrastructure and advancing American economic competitiveness, she said.
DOE resources span the entire power system, from new generation and storage technologies to enhancing and expanding the transmission system to maximizing efficiency and flexibility of demand resources.