Texas Power Demand Forecast Trimmed After Data Center Pause
(Bloomberg) -- Demand for electricity in Texas is expected to grow at a far slower pace after the state imposed a pause on new data center projects.
Power demand in Texas will rise by 5.6% next year, according to government data released Tuesday. That’s slower than the 14% annual load growth predicted in a July report, which would have been the biggest gain in a decade.
The revision follows Texas’s Aug. 3 decision to conduct an audit on all proposed data center projects seeking to connect to the state’s power grid, a move that effectively pauses the booming industry. The grid operator is considering about 474 gigawatts of connection requests, more than five times the state’s record peak demand.
The new US estimate for demand growth in Texas is, however, still above the average annual growth of 3.5% over the past decade.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the main state grid, projected in April that peak power demand may reach more than 367 gigawatts by 2032, with data centers driving more than 60% of the increase. That kind of unprecedented increased usage would require adding the equivalent of almost 300 traditional nuclear reactors.
The anticipated power consumption from data centers has led to concerns about reliability, adverse environmental impacts and rising consumer utility bills. It is also driving a growing pushback against plans to build the power-hungry facilities. New York in July became the first state to issue a moratorium on large new data centers, and several other states are considering similar polices.
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