The amount of electricity data centers use in the U.S. in the coming years is expected to be significant. But regular reports of proposals for new ones and cancellations of planned ones mean that it’s difficult to know exactly how many data centers will actually be built and how much electricity might be required to run them.
As a researcher of energy policy who has studied the cost challenges associated with new utility infrastructure, I know that uncertainty comes with a cost. In the electricity sector, it is the challenge of state utility regulators to decide who pays what shares of the costs associated with generating and serving these types of operations, sometimes broadly called “large load centers.”
