Axios Event: Rise in energy demand ‘has been planned for,’ DOE leader says

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The proliferation of AI data centers across the country is just one culprit of increased electricity demand in the U.S., with electrification and manufacturing also contributing to the rapid rise.

• Axios senior climate reporter Andrew Freedman and Axios Pro energy and climate reporter Nick Sobczyk moderated conversations with Department of Energy Office of Critical and Emerging Technologies director Helena Fu, Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.) and CO2EFFICIENT co-founder Tom Hassenboehler at the event, which was sponsored by Dell Technologies and NVIDIA.

Why it matters: The surge in demand is straining utilities companies and an already overworked grid, posing challenges for lawmakers and utility companies as they figure out how to meet power demand in the near-term while continuing progress toward U.S. emissions-reduction goals.

Concerns about managing short-term load growth exist alongside optimism around the potential long-term benefits of AI, electrification and domestic manufacturing that are contributing to the increase in power demand.

What they're saying: "This rise in energy demand is something that has been planned for, is needed for the clean energy goals that we need to be achieving. It's not only coming from the data centers, it's also coming from electrification, it's coming from the fact that manufacturing is coming back to the United States," Department of Energy Office of Critical and Emerging Technologies director Helena Fu said.

• "I don't sweat too much about the load growth, only because we know that the path to decarbonize is to electrify everything, to massively build out the loads, we know that's paced by our ability to build clean energy and transmission quick enough to connect it all up, and AI is just a part of that larger story," said Rep. Casten.

CO2EFFICIENT co-founder Tom Hassenboehler said that Congress should play a leading role in addressing the issue.

• He also called for collaboration between utilities, tech companies and the manufacturing sector to figure out how to manage the growth, because "it's not just an AI and data center boom that's causing a lot of this new load growth, it's electrification, it's re-onshoring of manufacturing."

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In a View from the Top sponsored segment, Dell Technologies climate solutions architect John Pflueger and NVIDIA senior director of corporate sustainability Josh Parker noted the ways AI could actually end up reducing energy consumption by maximizing efficiency in the long-term.

• "AI of course uses energy, and I think we're seeing some of that play out right now, where we need more to be able to deploy AI in this valuable way," NVIDIA senior director of corporate sustainability Josh Parker said.
• "But AI, when you turn its attention to this efficiency problem and sustainability problem, it has huge capabilities across sectors, across industries, not just within data centers of course, but if you look at transportation and industrial applications and so forth, it could actually move the needle to reduce energy consumption across all these industries," Parker added.