Data centers expected to consume 9% of US electricity by 2030

According to recent findings from the Electric Power Research Institute, data centers in the United States could consume up to 9% of the country’s total electricity by the end of the decade, representing a significant increase by compared to current levels.

This increase in energy consumption is attributed to the substantial investments made by technology companies to expand their IT facilities. The institute’s analysis indicates that the annual growth rate of data center power consumption could range from 3.7% to 15% through 2030, depending on factors such as the rate of technology adoption such as generative artificial intelligence (AI) and energy efficiency measures implemented in new data centers.

Growing demand for data center electricity, coupled with the expansion of domestic manufacturing and the electrification of transportation, is driving growth in the U.S. power sector after two decades of stagnant growth. These facilities use large amounts of energy to support high-intensity computing operations and cooling systems. For example, the electricity consumption of a single large data center is equivalent to that needed to power 750,000 homes, while even relatively small data centers consume the electricity equivalent of 50,000 homes.

The planned doubling of data center energy consumption is raising concerns about the strain it could put on the country’s power grid, potentially leading to higher electricity bills and an increased risk of power outages .

With the rapid adoption of generative AI applications, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, debuting in 2022, data center energy demand is expected to increase further. While early estimates suggested that ChatGPT searches consumed around ten times more electricity than typical Google searches, the proliferation of generative AI to create media content like movies and music could exponentially increase the need. in energy.

The Electric Power Research Institute highlights the importance of improving energy efficiency measures in data centers and investing in grid infrastructure to meet growing energy demand. Concentrating 80% of U.S. data center load in 2023 in just 15 states, including Virginia and Texas, means the need for strategic planning and resource allocation to address rapid change energy consumption patterns.

For comparison, in 2022, data centers in the European Union consumed between 45 and 65 TWh of electricity, which corresponds to approximately 1.8 to 2.6% of total regional electricity consumption. Interestingly, the four largest data center markets – Germany, France, the Netherlands and Ireland – accounted for almost two-thirds of the entire country’s data center energy consumption. region, although they represent less than 40% of the population.

Écrit par Vytautas Valinskas