The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has released a resource hub outlining the suite of tools available to support public and private stakeholders, including utilities and data center owners and operators, in meeting growing demand of electricity while maintaining system reliability, affordability, and security.
The Secretary of Energy Advisory Board has released their Powering AI and Data Center Infrastructure report, which provides 16 recommendations for DOE to help support growing power demand, reliably and affordably. The report considers power dynamics for AI model training, operational flexibility for data center and utility operators, and new generation and storage technologies to meet load growth.
DOE conducts research and analysis on these topics regularly, including deep public and private stakeholder engagement.
Resources and announcements on the Electricity Demand Growth Hub include:
· Request for Qualifications (RFQ) for Clean Energy Development at DOE’s Savannah River Site as part of DOE’s Cleanup to Clean Energy initiative. This RFQ seeks proposals for projects capable of generating 200 MW or more of carbon pollution-free electricity, and is open to proposals including collocated loads, such as data centers.
· Clean Energy Resources to Meet Data Center Electricity Demand provides additional context about data center load growth during the clean energy transition and lays out the broad portfolio of energy technologies and enabling solutions available to meet rising demand. This release includes a summary of the 30+ DOE resources and funding opportunities for utilities and data center operators, primarily providing technical assistance for state officials and other stakeholders, to manage demand growth.
· Pathways to Commercial Liftoff Topic Brief: How Clean Energy is the Solution to Rising Electricity Demand outlines the opportunity to unlock hundreds of gigawatts of system capacity by accelerating full commercialization for multiple clean energy technologies, advanced grid solutions, and virtual power plants (e.g., aggregated distributed energy resources) to help meet rising electricity demand.
· How AI Can Help Clean Energy Meet Growing Electricity Demand announces the first set of milestones achieved by DOE’s VoltAIc initiative, which is focused on building AI-powered tools for environmental permitting to help speed up energy deployments. The key milestones include gathering a comprehensive National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) dataset, developing AI testbeds for federal environmental reviewers, and demonstrating the effectiveness of large language models to increase efficiency and transparency with the public comment process.
Through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, DOE is equipped with more tools, funding and assistance programs, policies, and incentives than ever to meet the rising electricity demand with clean, affordable energy. DOE will continue to engage with industry, public officials, and communities to capture the benefits of electricity demand growth while advancing an equitable power system.
