Every month, projections on just how much and how fast U.S. electricity demand is growing keep rising. As those projections soar, the arithmetic of the energy transition is being rewritten in real time.

There’s the unforgettable line in Jaws, when the chief of police, Martin Brody, sees the shark for the first time. Stunned, he gathers himself just enough to quip “you’re going to need a bigger boat.”

We’re currently in that scene. And there’s no getting around it: we’re going to need a lot more electrons. We must double – and in some places triple – the number of electrons on the grid while doing so reliably and affordably. It’s a colossal undertaking.

Data centers could consume as much as 17 percent of all U.S. electricity by 2030, according to new research from Bloomberg Intelligence, nearly quadruple what they consume today.

By some estimates, the United States needs to find power to serve 50 gigawatts (GW) or more of data center demand by 2030. McKinsey, a leading international consultancy, believes the number could reach 83 GW or 606 terawatt hours of electricity in 2030, an enormous number and an extraordinary four-fold revision from their analysis in 2023.

Along with the ever-increasing total power demand expected to come from data centers is the exploding size of the data centers themselves. Massive, hyperscale facilities with the power demand of small cities are already being eclipsed by proposals for even larger installations.

One AI group, OpenAI, pitched the White House recently on building multiple 5 GW datacenter campuses across the nation. For context, 5 gigawatts is roughly the equivalent of five nuclear reactors, or enough to power almost 3 million homes. John Ketchum, CEO of NextEra Energy Inc., said about the proposal, “think about that. That’s the size of powering the city of Miami.”

Data center growth, once highly concentrated in hot spots like Silicon Valley and the tech hub of Northern Virginia, is now rapidly dispersing to chase affordable and reliable power.

Ohio-based AEP power, for example, reported that companies representing 15 GWs of new power demand – mainly from data centers – have approached the utility about new service by 2030. AEP added that “many, many” more gigawatts of demand are possible from hundreds of inquiries from potential customers.

Even Omaha, Nebraska is becoming a hotbed of data center activity. Just one data center there uses as much power as more than half the city.

Age of Electricity

On the shoulders of this skyrocketing demand comes economy-wide electrification.  

Recent analysis foresees nearly 80 million electric vehicles on U.S. roads in 2035, supported by a massive growth of charging stations. Sales of EVs in Q3 of 2024 set a new record, jumping 11% year over year and have positioned EV sales to soon eclipse 10% of all vehicle sales.

The nation’s grid operators and the Department of Energy now recognize and are scrambling to prepare for this rapidly approaching future.

The nation’s largest grid operator, PJM, which serves 65 million Americans, believes power demand in its territory could double by 2040. The Department of Energy believes national power demand will double by 2050.

As Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency, recently observed, we are entering the age of electricity. Global electricity demand has recently grown two times as fast as total energy demand. And from now to 2035, it’s set to grow six times as fast, driven by EVs, rapid uptake of air conditioning, semi-conductor manufacturing and the emergence of AI.

The back-of-the-napkin math says we desperately need more power, and we need to better value the generating capacity and energy infrastructure we already have.

Surging electricity demand is here and it’s now colliding with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s regulatory agenda. Our next president is facing an energy crisis but also a significant opportunity to reorient the nation’s energy policy. We need to build upon the shoulders of today’s existing dispatchable power plants instead of casting them aside. The choice is between meeting the demand we know is here and embracing a remarkable economic opportunity, or leaving the nation short of electricity and handing our global competitors an enormous advantage. Choose the bigger boat.