Texas-Size Demand Is Power Grid's Future.

"Everything is bigger in Texas, including its electricity use, which is increasing at historic rates in a sign of what is to come for much of the U.S and for the rest of the world.

The country's largest electricity producer and user saw sales grow at five times the national rate for the past decade, roughly like adding Louisiana. A crushing heat wave this summer broke 10 peak demand records for the main Texas grid operator, which narrowly avoided blackouts one hot evening.

Texas is an extreme example with a big population that needs a lot of air conditioning, but it is also at the center of trends pushing electricity use higher in pockets of the country: the reshoring of manufacturing, the growth of power-hungry data centers and a push to electrification.

Some analysts said they are concerned the U.S. grid isn't ready for accelerated growth in industries that want to plug in or the concentrated nature of the new demand in certain states. While there is room for more customers on the grid, planning is complex, and it is hard for the system to absorb if everyone tries to connect at the same place and time.

Texas is among a handful of states seeing dramatic upswings in demand.

Growth in semiconductor manufacturing has helped push electricity use higher in Oregon. States like Virginia and Iowa are seeing the addition of more large-scale data centers. Oil fields in North Dakota and New Mexico are hooking up to the grid and driving some of the nation's biggest upswings in electricity use.

Electricity demand typically inches higher slowly with economic and population growth, canceled out by efficiency gains. Nationally, sales grew just 5% in the past decade. Texas electricity demand grew by 25% during that period, according to government data.

New customers that have connected to the Texas grid in recent years include the Tesla gigafactory outside of Austin, a liquefied natural gas export facility on the Gulf Coast touted as the world's largest all-electric plant and bitcoin miners.

Texas is experiencing new demand on the electric grid that hasn't been seen since the 1950s, '60s and '70s, said Michael Skelly, chief executive of transmission developer Grid United.

"Are we on the brink of such a moment now with electrification of transportation, with more extreme weather?" Skelly asked, noting that Texas companies are pursuing carbon capture and hydrogen projects that will tap grid power. "And we're going to do AI," he said.

Many utilities and grid operators across the U.S. are adjusting demand forecasts higher.

In the coming years, computing power for artificial intelligence and wider adoption of electric vehicles will add to the demand. In addition, more manufacturing is relocating to the U.S. because of incentives in last year's Inflation Reduction Act.

The U.S. is also making a historic transition from conventional power plants fueled by coal and natural gas to cleaner forms of energy such as wind and solar power. Grid operators across the U.S. have been warning that power-generating capacity is struggling to keep up with demand, and that gaps could lead to rolling blackouts during hot or cold weather extremes.

Data centers are one of the biggest new power consumers, and demand from them could double by 2030. Some new data centers requesting grid connections are as large as 500 megawatts, as much as it takes to power hundreds of thousands of homes, said Rob Chapman, senior vice president of energy delivery and customer solutions at the Electric Power Research Institute, a nonprofit researcher.

In Virginia, the state's largest utility, Dominion Energy, has connected 75 new data centers since 2019, much of it fueled by streaming and work-from-home trends. Statewide electricity sales are up 7% year-to-date since then, according to government data. The utility expects electric demand to grow by about 85% over the next 15 years, spokesman Aaron Ruby said.

In the Pacific Northwest, electricity demand is expected to increase 20% in the next five years, much of it because of industrial growth, according to the Pacific Northwest Utilities Conference Committee, a trade association." [1]

1. Texas-Size Demand Is Power Grid's Future. Hiller, Jennifer.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 14 Nov 2023: A.1.