Bank of America put a number on the near-term supply problem: more than 230 GW of new generating capacity needed over five years, against 93 GW of expected accredited utility additions.
That gap is already changing behavior. Data center developers are moving toward on-site gas engines, Google is anchoring a 2.5-GW solar and storage project in Arkansas, and PJM’s market monitor is arguing that large loads should procure capacity outside the base auction. The common thread is practical, not philosophical: buyers with real load are looking for ways around slow supply.
The Lede
SUPPLY
BofA Sees a 100-GW Supply Gap
Bank of America forecasts more than 230 GW of new U.S. generating capacity will be needed over the next five years, while regulated utilities are expected to add only about 93 GW of accredited supply. Data centers alone could add roughly 125 GW of electric load and push overall electricity demand growth to a 4.1% CAGR from 2026 through 2030.
The supply gap is already pushing developers toward behind-the-meter generation. More than 7.5 GW of data center projects with on-site generation are under construction, with another 60 GW-plus in pre-construction. Large gas turbines are largely sold out through 2030, increasing demand for faster-deploying reciprocating gas engines.
GridBrief Take: BofA’s forecast is the speed-to-power case in one chart. Serious customers will not wait forever on interconnection queues, turbine backlogs, and utility planning cycles.
Other Things to Check Out
National Review: Red-State Freedom Is Better for the Environment Than European Green Socialism
Drew Bond argues that Europe’s top-down green industrial policy has delivered high costs and weak competitiveness.Reason: Trump’s 18-Month Deadline to Cut Electricity Prices in Half Has Arrived. Rates Are Up 18%.
Jeff Luse uses the rate data to make the basic point: campaign slogans do not build generation, transmission, transformers, or gas turbines.New York Times: Britain Moves to Cut Electricity Taxes
Andy Burnham’s new government plans to remove VAT from domestic electricity bills, a direct response to cost-of-living pressure.Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: Data Centers Powered by Next-Gen Nuclear?
A skeptical read on tech-sector nuclear announcements and the gap between press releases, reactor timelines, and actual deployment.Axios Pro: Bluecore Energy Launches With $10M for Nuclear on Barges
Bluecore is targeting ports and data centers with small modular reactors on barges, starting with a test reactor at the Port of Long Beach.Bloomberg: Spain’s Renewable Overbuild Hits Investor Returns
Spain shows the financial problem created when renewable buildout outruns transmission, storage, and flexible demand.
UTILITY RATES
Electric Rates Outpace Inflation
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory says U.S. electric rates increased 2.6% from 2024 to 2025 after adjusting for inflation. Since 2019, nominal residential rates rose 33%, commercial rates rose 26%, and industrial rates rose 27%, though inflation-adjusted average retail prices remain below 2010 levels.
Utility rate hike requests reached $18 billion in 2025, the highest level in decades, with regulators approving 64% of requested revenue increases from 2021 to 2025. LBNL points to transmission and distribution spending, wildfire mitigation, storm repair, commodity prices, tax policy, shrinking retail sales, and state-specific programs as major drivers.
GridBrief Take: The rate pressure is real, but the drivers are specific. Commissions should separate reliability spending from policy costs and monopoly cost recovery before blaming new load for everything on the bill.
SOLAR AND STORAGE
Google Backs Massive Arkansas Solar and Storage Project
Google signed a deal with Cypress Creek Energy to invest in and receive power from the Steel River Energy Center in Mississippi County, Arkansas. The project is expected to deliver 2.5 GW of solar generation and 2.9 GWh of battery storage by 2029, with Google serving as anchor investor and offtaker.
The first two phases will bring 1.6 GW of solar and 1.9 GWh of storage online. Cypress Creek says the project will use U.S.-made panels and mostly local steel. The project is expected to create 700 construction jobs per phase and generate about $300 million in local tax revenue over its life.
GridBrief Take: Google is putting capital behind new supply, which is exactly what large-load critics keep demanding. Solar and storage help, but firm capacity still has to be built around the AI load curve.
DATA CENTERS
Data Centers Could Reach a Fifth of U.S. Power Use
Recent forecasts keep moving data center demand higher. LBNL estimates data centers could use 9.5% to 15.3% of U.S. electricity by 2030, up from about 4.7% in 2024. EPRI projects 10% to 20% by 2035, Rhodium’s high-growth case reaches 18%, and BloombergNEF estimates data center power demand could hit 106 GW by 2035.
That load will not be served by one resource. Hyperscalers are pursuing nuclear restarts, SMRs, gas co-location, behind-the-meter generation, PPAs, storage, demand response, and workload shifting. Grid access and turbine supply remain the near-term constraints.
GridBrief Take: Nuclear is part of the 2030s answer, especially restarts and uprates. The late-2020s answer is more practical: gas engines, storage, flexible load, faster wires, plant life extensions, and private power.
DATA CENTERS, AGAIN
PJM Market Monitor Puts Data Center Capacity Costs at $6.3B
Monitoring Analytics says data centers accounted for $6.3 billion, or 38%, of the $16.4 billion in charges from PJM’s latest capacity auction. Across PJM’s last four base capacity auctions, data center-related charges totaled $29.4 billion, or 46% of total capacity charges.
Market monitor Joseph Bowring says large loads should contract for their own generation, or use separate auctions to procure capacity under long-term contracts. PJM’s board is developing a backstop auction proposal for data centers that could be filed with FERC this month for a September auction.
GridBrief Take: A separate capacity path can work if it gives large loads a clean way to buy what they need. PJM should also leave room for CRE, bring-your-own-power, co-location, and self-supply structures that reduce the amount of capacity PJM has to procure.
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Quick Signals
VPPs move toward the data center market. Reuters reports that Sunrun, Tesla, Renew, and other virtual power plant operators are exploring contracts with data center customers. VPPs can reduce peak demand and defer some grid investment, especially in regions where interconnection timelines are too slow.
SPP issued a Level 3 energy alert. The Southwest Power Pool warned of potential rolling blackouts after using some or all operating reserves during peak conditions. SPP has been developing faster large-load service options, and this heat event shows why flexibility and new capacity need to arrive together.
Uniper targets data centers in strategy shift. The German utility plans about €5 billion in investment by 2030 and is targeting data centers at power plant sites. Europe’s utilities are discovering that existing generation locations, grid connections, and industrial land have new value in a compute-constrained economy.
FERC pushes reliability standards for large computational loads. FERC directed NERC to propose reliability standards for data centers by year-end. The key issue is how large computing facilities ride through voltage disturbances and avoid sudden load drops that can create grid stability problems.
New York’s hydropower line outage shows delivery risk. The Champlain Hudson Power Express line has been offline during high summer demand, forcing New York to rely more heavily on oil-fired generators. Clean energy procurement does not help reliability if the delivery system fails during peak conditions.
National Grid buys into U.S. data center power. National Grid is investing $1.75 billion in Joulent, a developer focused on supplying power to data centers. The investment supports a Chevron-linked West Texas project intended to provide 2.67 GW to a Microsoft data center by 2028.
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