On July 9 the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio overruled several objections from tech companies, and required data centers to pay more upfront costs for their energy-hungry industry.
Much of the increasing demand for electricity in the U.S. is driven by data centers, artificial intelligence projects, and cryptocurrency mining. The declining physical economy has a stagnant electricity demand. The current U.S. power grid is stretched to capacity and several bottlenecks are reported. In 2022 the U.S. had 2,700 data centers using about 4% of the country’s power supply, but by 2026 the data center demand will be 6%. U.S. electricity demand is expected to increase by 25% by 2030, according to a study by ICF, Inc..
