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The report projects that utility power provided to hyperscale, leased, and crypto-mining data centers will increase by roughly 11.3 GW in 2025, reaching 61.8 GW
In sum – what to know:
Data center power use rising sharply – U.S. grid demand will grow 22% in 2025 and nearly triple by 2030, driven largely by hyperscale and AI workloads, says 451 Research.
Utilities respond with new tariffs – States such as Ohio are revising cost structures to limit exposure for non-data center customers as grid investments surge.
On-site power gains traction – Fuel cells, renewables, and hybrid systems are emerging as stopgaps amid limited grid capacity and soaring electricity needs.
Data centers across the United States will require 22% more grid power by the end of 2025 compared with last year, with demand expected to nearly triple by 2030, according to a new forecast from 451 Research, part of S&P Global.
The report projects that utility power provided to hyperscale, leased, and crypto-mining data centers will increase by roughly 11.3 GW in 2025, reaching 61.8 GW. That figure is expected to rise to 75.8 GW in 2026, 108 GW in 2028, and 134.4 GW by 2030. The forecast does not include enterprise-owned data centers outside of hyperscale tech giants such as Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta Platform, and Microsoft.
The growth of AI applications is a major factor behind the surge, driving robust load forecasts among utilities nationwide. Still, considerable uncertainty remains over the pace of new power demand, the capacity of the grid to meet it, and the availability of large-scale on-site power alternatives, the report added.
In September, for instance, American Electric Power Company subsidiary Ohio Power Company provided the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio with an update on its data center pipeline that showed interconnection requests for 36 sites totaling 13 GW of load. That was down from over 30 GW previously, according to the report.
The reduction followed the commission’s order in July directing Ohio Power, known as AEP Ohio, to file new tariffs specific to data centers. Large data center customers connecting to the grid in AEP Ohio’s service area will be responsible for at least 85% of the energy they are subscribed to use, regardless of actual usage, according to the order.
Ohio is among several states seeking to protect households and other utility customers from grid infrastructure costs linked to data centers, the report added.
451 Research also forecasts Virginia’s data-center demand for grid power will reach roughly 12.1 GW in 2025, up from 9.3 GW in 2024, made up of leased and hyperscale facilities. In Texas, utility power demand from data centers will hit about 9.7 GW in 2025, rising from less than 8 GW in 2024, led by crypto-mining and leased projects.
Oregon is expected to see over 4 GW of data-center demand by the end of this year, up from 3.5 GW in 2024, according to the outlook. For Arizona, Georgia, Ohio, California, Illinois, and Iowa, state-level data-center demand is forecast between 3.2 GW and 2.3 GW.
