Its Role in Growing Electricity Demand
Craig Stover is EPRI Senior Program Manager, Advanced Nuclear Technology.
There is a growing global demand for electricity, driven by the increasing need for data centers capable of processing artificial intelligence applications, among other factors. The International Energy Agency recently projected that electricity demand from data centers worldwide is set to more than double by 2030 to around nine hundred forty-five terawatt-hours, slightly more than the entire electricity consumption of Japan today, while it projects power consumption by data centers in the U.S. to account for almost half of the growth in electricity demand between now and 2030. Although these projections hold some uncertainty, it is clear that data center growth will likely need more generation sources to meet this demand.