The U.S. datacenter boom is well underway, as electricity demand is expected to triple for the AI and cloud computing industry from 200 TWh in 2025 to 600 TWh in 2030, said a report from LandGate.
This increase in demand represents 11.7% of the total electricity demand of the United States, said the report. Over $700 billion of U.S. GDP and 4 million jobs are supported by the industry, it said.
With this explosion of growth comes the opportunity to meet unprecedented electricity demand spikes with emissions-free electricity sources like solar and energy storage. Microsoft’s $2.1 billion AI-focused data center in Phoenix, Arizona is harnessing a combination of solar, nuclear, and natural gas power sources to meet its energy needs, for example.
LandGate said that traditional datacenters require 30 MW to 50 MW of power on site, but newer facilities may require 100 MW of capacity or more, rivaling the scale of large utility-scale solar facilities built today. LandGate said the average U.S. facility is expected to grow from 40 MW to 60 MW by 2028.
The largest markets for datacenters in terms of acreage are Virginia, with over 40,000 acres dedicated to development, the solar boom state of Texas, with over 20,000 acres for datacenters, and Wyoming, with roughly 15,000 acres planned for datacenter development.
Data centers are owned by large companies like Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Google, who are also leading subscribers to solar power to offset their electricity use. The solar plants are often located in the same geographic region as the data centers they serve.
Meta, for example, recently signed an agreement with Cypress Creek Renewables, enabling construction of the 505 MWdc Hanson solar facility in Coleman County, Texas. Meta said it now has 6.7 GW of renewable energy online and 11.7 GW contracted. The company said it is matching 100% of its electricity use with renewable energy by adding new clean energy projects to local grids.
As data centers proliferate, new markets are emerging, with data centers now found in Louisiana, Mississippi, Wisconsin and West Virginia, said a report from Wood Mackenzie. Amazon, for example, recently secured full capacity of the Ragsdale Solar Park in Madison County, Mississippi.
(Read: “The great grid transition in the age of data centers and EVs”)
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