A recent report published by Grid Strategies, titled “Power Demand Forecasts Revised Up for Third Year Running, Led by Data Centers,” noted that electric usage is expected to continue to increase. In fact, according to the report, over the past three years, the five-year forecast of utility peak load growth has increased by more than a factor of six, from 24 GW to 166 GW.

“The era of flat power demand is behind us,” said the report. Electricity usage is forecast to grow by an average of 5.7 percent per year over the next five years, with peak demand growth forecast at 166 GW, a 3.7 percent annual rate.

Electricity use is forecast to increase even more quickly than peak power demand. By 2030, according to the report, forecasts indicate that total electricity use will increase by 32 percent. The higher growth rate for electricity use likely reflects high load factors of data centers as well as forecast changes in off-peak energy use by other customers.

“Data centers are the largest driver of demand and energy growth, accounting for about 55% of demand growth in utility load forecasts over the next five years,” said the report. Even though smaller than data center growth, new loads for industrial/manufacturing, oil and gas/mining, and other load types are large compared to recent decades.

However, cautioned the report, the data center portion of utility load forecasts is likely overstated by roughly 25 GW, based on a review of reports published by market analysts. “This discrepancy indicates that utility forecast practices need improvement to better reflect the probability of projects completing, their total loads, supply constraints, or timing of load growth,” noted the report.

Of the 166 GW of forecasted peak load growth, roughly 90 GW are linked to data centers, according to the report. Very few utility load forecasts differentiate data center types. While some break out crypto mining facility load, not enough do so to provide a useful national estimate for this subcategory. Notably, artificial intelligence (AI) load is not categorically tracked in any publicly available utility forecast.

However, data center market analysts indicate that data center growth is unlikely to require much more than 65 GW through 2030. Similar growth is shown in one proprietary database of data center projects. This suggests that either the timing or the magnitude of FERC-submitted load forecasts collectively overstate datacenter-driven load growth by about 40 percent.

Industrial and manufacturing needs drive about 30 GW, with oil & gas and mining sectors contributing perhaps ten GW more. While utility load forecasts often provide detail for subsectors, these practices are not consistently applied, according to the report. “It is not feasible to provide further detail at the national level, nor can a breakdown for energy use be estimated,” said the report.

Other drivers, representing about 30 GW of growth, include general residential and commercial growth (building electrification), EV charging (transportation electrification), and other factors. Many load forecasts had roughly zero growth for these other load types, while as much as half of some other forecasts were attributed to these factors collectively.

The report added that the analysis required professional judgement to interpret available data. Useful forecast differentiation was available (or inferred) for forecasts representing about 90 percent of national load.