Electrification of industry and new loads, such as AI datacenters, is accelerating at an unprecedented pace, resulting in a dramatic and rapid 2× –3× increase in electricity demand. Utilities and governments are rushing in to build more gas generation, reviving mothballed nuclear plants and building more new nuclear plants, as well as betting on new, and as yet, unproven technologies such as small modular reactors—in effect, everything including the kitchen sink—all in the name of reliable dispatchable generation that is needed by “critical” loads such as datacenters.
To support this new generation, we will need new transmission, new gas pipelines, and new distribution infrastructures. Public service commissions (PSCs) are falling in line and approving requests from investor-owned utilities (IOUs) for as much as a 20× increase over two years to their prior “integrated resource plans” (IRP), mainly based on projections of the many data centers and new industrial loads that may be built in their service territory [1].
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