California energy regulators increased their projections Monday of data centers’ electricity use, predicting that new facilities in Northern California in particular will be a leading driver of demand through midcentury.
What happened: The California Energy Commission published data showing that Pacific Gas and Electric’s pipeline of data center energy capacity requests increased from about 12,000 megawatts in September to about 15,000 MW in December.
That increase was driven by projects in the “inquiry” stage, which means that the developers have not yet filed a formal application and may not end up actually constructing the data center. However, the data shows that PG&E nearly doubled its number of data center capacity requests that have penned an agreement between September and December, increasing from 2,000 MW to 4,000 MW.
Why it matters: After nearly two decades of relatively stable electricity demand, regulators are now predicting that Golden State electricity consumption could rise by more than 50 percent by 2045. The top end of the forecast rose significantly in the past year as the data center boom came into focus. In 2024, regulators predicted that the high case could bring 3 percent compounding annual energy growth until 2030. Now, they say that figure could exceed 4 percent.
