Lots of demand, too little grid: The state of the US… | Canary Media
By: CanaryMediaInc (Canary Media)
Interesting article here that attempts to quantify how far behind we are in terms of adding generation and transmission/distribution to accommodate the rapidly rising load in the U.S. and indicate which areas of the country will see the most significant load growth. I have been saying all along that not enough attention is being paid to these shortcomings in both generation and distribution. What this article points out is that this rapid load growth and failure to catch up might end up hurting our attempts to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels.
One noticeable omission from this article is any mention of the use of SMR's and other modern nuclear technology to help fill the gaps. To me that is a no-brainer in the shorter term along with investing in the development of fusion energy longer term.
Another surprise I see in this article, and this might just be because of a lack of communication from the CEC and the California Utilities, but some of the fastest growing EV and data center loads are all up and down California. I would have thought those areas would have been more thoroughly covered in such an article as I know for a fact that we lack adequate generation and to a lesser extent distribution in this State.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
An underbuilt power grid is preventing the U.S. from meeting surging demand with new clean energy. These charts show why that's the case. 
By Jeff St. John
2 January 2025
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The current state of the U.S. power sector can be summed up in just a few words: too much demand for electricity; too small of a power grid.
In the past two years, electricity demand forecasts have risen dramatically, a sharp reversal after nearly two decades of little-to-no electricity growth.
The cheapest and cleanest way to meet most of this skyrocketing demand is by plugging new solar, wind, and battery projects into the grid. It's also the only way to address this growth without undermining the emissions goals of states, the federal government, and the Big Tech firms whose data-center construction plans are driving much of this booming electricity demand to begin with.
But an underbuilt and overburdened U.S. power grid is preventing clean energy from getting built and connected — just when the grid needs it the most.
Solving this supply-demand mismatch will be the challenge for utilities, grid operators, regulators, and policymakers. After all, if it wasn't AI data centers causing this reckoning now, it'd be electric vehicles or green hydrogen facilities or building electrification sometime in the near future.
In other words, the era of rising electricity demand is here to stay. Below is a by-the-numbers breakdown of why it's so hard for the U.S. to meet that need with clean power.
Load growth is getting out of control — but not everywhere
The latest data on the surge in U.S. electricity demand is not just surprising, it's "shocking."
So says a December report from consultancy Grid Strategies that found that the five-year load-growth forecasts from utilities across the country have jumped almost fivefold from 2022 to late 2024, to nearly 128 gigawatts — a pace that would force the country to increase its capacity to generate and deliver electricity by nearly 16 percent by 2029. That's an unprecedented growth rate in the modern era.
This forecasted growth isn't evenly distributed, however.
The lion's share is concentrated in data-center clusters like Northern Virginia, which is already facing a strained grid and obstacles to further expansion. Parts of Georgia and Texas are dealing with an inrush of data-center developers and increasing demand from manufacturing and oil and gas extraction, respectively. Swaths of the mid-Atlantic and Midwest are also expecting gigawatts of new demand in the next five years; some utilities see enough proposed new development to nearly double their current electricity delivery capacity.
The response from utilities has been to fall back on the status quo — fossil fuels. In the past year or so, utilities have dramatically expanded their plans for new gas-fired power plants, and some are proposing to delay planned closures of coal power plants.
The gridlock keeping clean energy from meeting the need
In a world where grid congestion wasn't a problem, clean power could meet most, if not all, of that near-term growth in demand.
But that's not the world we live in. Instead, the backlog of solar, wind, and battery projects now seeking to interconnect to U.S. grids has ballooned to nearly 2,600 gigawatts' worth of generation capacity. That's roughly twice the country's existing generation capacity, per data from the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Only a fraction of those projects would likely be built even if the grid had room for them. Since 2000, just under one-fifth of all projects requesting grid interconnection have been completed, according to LBNL's latest "Queued Up" report.
That's partly due to energy developers crowding interconnection queues with multiple applications in hopes of finding at least one that will greenlight their project. But it's also due to the multiyear wait times for projects seeking interconnection and the increasing cost of grid upgrades those projects are asked to pay once they do receive approval to plug into the grid.
The missing grid problem
The interconnection backlog that's preventing clean energy from meeting new demand is itself the consequence of a major underlying problem: The U.S. transmission grid isn't expanding nearly as quickly as needed.
Even so, utilities are spending big on transmission these days. In fact, they're investing more than ever , as shown in this chart from analysis firm Brattle Group using data reported by utilities to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Unfortunately, far too little of that transmission spending has gone to new long-range, high-voltage transmission lines to connect wind and solar farms in more remote parts of the country to population centers where that power is needed. Those projects have fallen off precipitously over the past decade, as highlighted in a July report from Grid Strategies and trade group Americans for a Clean Energy Grid.
Instead, utilities have prioritized transmission investments in "local" projects — smaller-scale power lines or upgrades to existing lines. These projects may address individual utilities' needs for grid reliability and make expanded power-delivery capacity more reliable. But they're also disconnected from larger regional power-sharing and load-growth trends, according to critics.
A November report from think tank RMI highlighted that most of these local projects are "self-approved" by utilities due to gaps in federal, regional, and state regulatory jurisdiction, giving regulators little or no oversight over whether these projects represent the best "bang for the buck" compared with more strategic regional transmission expansions.
Self-approved projects make up two-thirds to three-quarters of all transmission spending in many regions of the country, and in the territory of mid-Atlantic grid operator PJM, they have increased by 2,600 percent from 2009 to 2023 while larger-scale regional projects — also known as "baseline" projects — actually declined.
Looking ahead
For now, it's hard to know how much electricity growth is actually on the way. The reality might ultimately be more modest than "shocking."
But what's certain is that electricity demand is growing, and if the U.S. doesn't respond with mostly clean energy, then its grid decarbonization progress will stall out. The country is already lagging when it comes to cleaning up the power sector. If utilities expand or extend the life of fossil-fueled power plants, it could doom any hope of meeting the country's Paris agreement commitments altogether.
Avoiding this fate will require the U.S. to deal with the root causes of the current energy gridlock, and rapidly reform its interconnection and transmission planning, permitting, and cost-allocation processes.
The load-growth conundrum may actually enable just that. Utilities, regulators, policymakers, and the country's most powerful industries are focusing on finding workable solutions to the underlying bottlenecks that have been building up for the past decade.
"It's hard to think of an electricity industry process that is not affected by power demand, whether it's utility integrated resource plans, rate cases, transmission planning, resource adequacy — you name it," Rob Gramlich, president of Grid Strategies, said during a webinar presenting the consultancy's latest data. "I think these numbers have major implications around the country."
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Jeff St. John is director of news and special projects at Canary Media. He covers innovative grid technologies, rooftop solar and batteries, clean hydrogen, EV charging, and more.
Y'all be cool now, ya hear?!
This article points out that while improvement efforts so far have been more local or distributed, better coordination is still required to optimize the whole system and transmission of power from resources to consumer.
Please click the links to reference the charts discussed in the article. I could not really embed the images so I thought I'd link to their actual source.
I think that both the local/distributed infrastructure and the higher capacity interconnects are both going to be important and needed in the long run, the latter especially for the cities where space is at a premium. I have been hearing grumblings about this here on the east coast, but haven't delved deeply enough into them to really see if they were the electric companies holding their hands out for more money or something truly approaching "We need to do something now" type of deal.
I personally believe that everyone should be working towards local systems at the home/neighborhood level, but I would imagine that things might tighten up resource-wise with the higher market demand...
Well we just have to keep plugging away. The move from fossil fuel energy is complicated enough given how integrated this form of energy is to our infrastructure. On top of that we continue to grow our population and continue to rely more on electrical energy (with AI leading the charge). Then, of course, we have the endless misinformation about climate change pumping up ignorant partisans to push for more fossil fuel energy and actually fight against renewables (crazy, crazy times).
This is not easy, but moving from fossil fuels is not a choice.
An EV fast charging station can consume more electricity in a single session than an average home does in a day. The forced transition to EVs has created an immediate need to expand local grid capacity over expansion of transmission capacity. So, yes, green politics has resulted in an urban pinch point resulting in cities competing with each other for transmission capacity.
Add to that the misinformation concerning 'data centers'. The growth in data centers is a direct result of increased cryptocurrency mining. These 'data centers' are consuming enormous amounts of electricity while producing nothing of value. Data centers are small footprint, high density electricity consumers that compete with tens of thousands of homes on a local grid. Adding a single data center would be comparable to adding several large residential subdivisions. The rapid growth of that local demand would naturally expect to be prioritized over expansion of transmission capacity.
What is happening doesn't really have anything to do with transitioning away from fossil fuels. The rapid growth in electricity demand has been the result of opening new markets and business expansion. This is a direct consequence of NIMBY environmentalism married with money-for-nuthin' economic policies (and favoritism). Transitioning to EVs is a stupid policy championed by greedy people. Mass transit in urban areas is the answer. Constructing humongous fields of solar and wind power generation hundreds of miles away from consumers is NIMBY policy championed by greedy people.
Pointing fingers, placing blame, and identifying scapegoats will only waste time, effort, attention. Climate change won't be addressed by feeding greed. And we're not going to get a resilient, cost effective power system by allowing greedy people control over the public pig trough.
I got to the sentence about a forced transition to EVs and just stopped reading. There is no forced transition, I see dealerships selling gasoline powered vehicles everywhere. I see ads for new gasoline powered vehicles on TV constantly. Most new vehicles purchased are gasoline powered.
Fuck off with that nonsense.
it's the maga MO. exaggerate the effects of progress they don't like and minimize the effects of their own willful ignorance.
10 years, ready or not. This is another decade long 'moonshot' thing liberals like to boast about but not contribute to. A ' head up the ass ' attitude won't prepare for the forced transition to EVs.
Ah yes, that forced transition that is never coming. Sure, I’ll be on the look out for that one.
Yes, that forced transition cited in the provided links. Light vehicle fleets have already begun the transition. (Didn't you notice the two latest 'terror' incidents used fleet EVs?) Light vehicle fleets transitioning to EVs will limit the supply of available used ICE vehicles.
So, private citizens or privately owned companies are buying or leasing EVs voluntarily (the Vegas bomber was so proud of his cybertruck that his arm must have surely been twisted to force him to rent it), and that's somehow the same as a forced transition?
Words have meanings, Nerm. The voluntary purchase of a product is, by definition, the opposite of a forced transition to that product.
So, what voluntary choices will consumers have in 2035 when the ban on sales of ICE light vehicles are put into force?
Yes, words do indeed have meanings. Do you understand what the word 'transition' means? Consumers can only voluntarily purchase what is legally available on the market. (Yes, consumers voluntarily buy illegal stuff but that's a totally different discussion.)
Local, state, and Federal government has meddled in the market to favor EVs and burden ICE vehicles with stricter requirements and higher cost. Government is forcing the market toward EVs with mandates, regulations, requirements, and taxes (incentives and punitive).
The meaning of 'forced transition' is not the same as 'coerced consumption'. So, it would be wise to avoid mixing the meanings.
Already addressed @3.2.11
I do. I also understand what "forced" means. Voluntary purchases are not forced. No matter how much you try to twist.
Hilarious, coming from the guy who equates "voluntary purchase" with "forced transition".
Where did I claim or imply that the government is going to require everyone to purchase an EV? The government only imposes those sorts of mandated purchases for financial products, like insurance. (Politicians do have a vested interest in ensuring their donor base rakes in a lot of cash.)
EVs have been on the market for decades. But consumers have not embraced EVs sufficiently to transition the market to EVs. The 'voluntary purchase' approach wasn't working according to activist desires. So, now government, at all levels, are intervening in the voluntary marketplace to force a transition. Government intervention has sped the adoption of EVs. But it's becoming clear that transition will not sustain itself. Are we to believe that government will not impose mandated manufacture and sale of EVs as the transition falters?
The forced transition applies to the supply of vehicles regardless of demand. The forced transition applies to manufacture and sale of light vehicles, no matter what consumers want. The voluntary choice of consumers is being deliberately and artificially limited by government mandated availability.
At this point, we weren't talking about government. You implied that fleets transitioning to EV were "forced" when you said
I pointed out that those were voluntary purchases. Nobody, government or otherwise, forced the transition of those fleets to EV. The companies that own them CHOSE to purchase them, despite the ready availability of ICE vehicles. Businesses that make their money by owning/renting vehicles obviously must purchase vehicles, not by government mandate, but by the nature of their business. They are not being forced to transition. They are voluntarily doing so. If you want to bring up terrorist attacks, well, Livensberger was tickled pink to be driving a Cybertruck. No forced transition.
But, since you're asking, you are implying that government is forcing a transition (not purchase, but "purchase" was not your original false claim, was it? You've moved goalposts.).
Those are your words.
Make up your mind, Nerm. We're being forced to transition, but we're not complying (damn, we're good at not doing what we're forced to do), so now they'll force us to transition. And it won't be government doing the forcing, but it also will be government doing the forcing, according to you. How many time will you contradict yourself?
isn't a thing. Credibility tanked in the second sentence.
Bullshit.
How quick the spin cycle starts and the gaslighting of the truth begins.
People pushing unrealistic EV sales before the infrastructure required to support it is done are dimwits. Perhaps they should stick to being dentists, housewives, accountants, tent dwellers, etc. Leave the details to those who truly understand the issue at hand and not just part of it.
Actually it is a thing in California. If you want to purchase a new car in 2035 you can only purchase a zero-emission car or light truck. One will still be allowed to purchase a used vehicle, but no new cars. Unless that's been overturned by the incoming Trump administration already and just hasn't made the news yet.
See @3.1.2 . Add to that the more stringent regulatory requirements being imposed on ICE vehicles.
The political language adopted by the Biden-Harris administration follows the same pattern of overstating benefits and ignoring obvious flaws utilized by Democrats to enact a forced transition to Obamacare. The forced transition EVs won't lower cost, increase access, or improve standard of living any more than the forced transition to Obamacare has. We're going to end up with another ungodly expensive patchwork of fixes trying to save a bad idea.
“isn't a thing. “
Where have you been?
So where do you see a forced transition to EVs?
Looks like you take a policy statement geared at reduced emissions and favoring the adoption of EVs and exaggerate it into a emotional "forced" hyperbole.
EV adoption will be based on the market. Manufacturers should be encouraged to produce vehicles with cleaner emissions and better fuel economy. That is a good thing. But that falls quite short of the ridiculous emotional hyperbole that the government is forcing the public to buy EVs.
The government (at least for now) is encouraging / incentivizing the market to move to cleaner, more efficient vehicles. The market will operate under its own volition as it always does.
How ridiculous. You googled for emotive headlines that had 'forced' in the titles.
Yeah, there are people who exaggerate a push for EVs into "forced" and write articles expressing their exaggerations.
The reality is that government can at best encourage the move towards EVs. The market will determine how much and how fast such a move takes place. Further, it is not just the market. Transitioning from an infrastructure heavily grounded in fossil fuel energy will force a slow pace of change.
There are profound natural forces that will govern the transition away from fossil fuels and even if Executive / Legislative branches wanted to try to force it, they would not be able to bypass these natural forces.
Read the article. Do some research on cafe standards under biden.
How much do you want to bet that by 2035, if the California market does not want to go all in on EVs that they will find plenty of ways around this (including changes in law)? And do you want to speculate on the ability of California to successfully transform its infrastructure to support ALL new vehicles being zero-emission?
I bet this plan will be revised several times prior to 2035.
You ignore my points and offer no rebuttal.
Argue all you want, no one is being forced to buy an EV. It is simply not a thing. When you go to a car dealership EVs are not your only options. You are not punished for not buying an EV. Stop trying to change the word forced to make your argument valid.
And Nerm, Sparty, and Gazoo:
Let's explore verb tense, shall we? "Is" is present tense. You are not currently being prevented from buying an ICE vehicle. Even in a year, the majority of the market can be ICE vehicles, even in the most restrictive state of California. Nerm's second link states that a year ago, 7.2% of the market was EV's. Not the 100% that goes with being "forced" to transition.
I can pretty much guarantee that, if I were to decide to trade in my car now, I would have much more stock to choose from in the ICE category than in the EV category. Because we're not being forced to transition.
Even in 2035, there will be plenty of loopholes allowing one to buy an ICE car. Used cars. Buying them in states where ICE cars are available. Heavy-duty pickups, which are exempt.
The charging stations local to me are generally empty. That's because
isn't happening. The infrastructure is there, and largely unused. I know one person with an EV. He wasn't forced to buy it. He was enticed with tax incentives.
Yep, i ignored your opinions and offered you advice to read a posted article and do some research. Other than that i’m not interested in a never ending “discussion” that we will never agree on.
Not right now, but look what biden and the loony left was working toward.
All you have offered is yet another 'nuh-uh' response. I read your article before I posted. Clearly you did not get past the headline.
You are on the wrong site then; you might be better served on an echo chamber where nobody will disagree with you.
What I said is "The forced transition to EVs has created an immediate need to expand local grid capacity over expansion of transmission capacity." I did not use the verb "is". Refer to @3 that opened this discussion thread.
The point was that the various government policy initiatives has forced utilities to place a higher priority on local distribution (primarily for EV charging) than on expanding transmission grid capacity. The government's artificial preferences to favor EV adoption has hampered the need to improve and expand the transmission grid.
An inadequate transmission grid places urban areas in competition with each other. In the real world, that should spur urban areas to consider investing in their own, local, home-grown generation capacity. That type of local investment would lessen the immediate need to expand transmission capacity. But, of course, those local investments in alternative energy generation would fall on the shoulders of local taxpayers which spurs politicians to gripe about transmission shortfalls and do nothing to address the issue. The old scapegoating status quo politics is a major contributor to the problem.
"Has created" means that the need is there now, in the present. That the need is a fait accompli. That all of those EVs are already on the road, gobbling up energy. Despite the fact that, according to you
Doesn't sound like all that immediate a need, if we haven't embraced EVs.
The only ridiculous thing here is your avoidance of my main point. Unrealistic positions, goals and legislation on EV transition.
No one is arguing that a transition isn’t required over time. At least I’m not but when I hear politicians and other uninformed people here or elsewhere talk about unrealistic goals and transition time periods I gladly scoff the stupidity of the same.
Gladly
I refuted your unsupported claim of "bullshit" @4.2.1 in response to Sandy's note @4.2 that there is no forced transition to EVs.
I did not address the strawman that you tacked onto the end of your post.
There is no forced transition to EVs was the issue at hand.
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Opinion do vary. Greatly in this case.
"In a world where grid congestion wasn't a problem, clean power could meet most, if not all, of that near-term growth in demand."
I don't think that's a realistic assessment. "Clean" power is now, and always will be, unreliable. It cannot replace the current fossil fueled grid, which must always be available for immediate back up. Endless permitting requirements and environmental impact studies further slowdown the process
Forever? Seriously?
Our future renewable energy will come from a combination of sources. These include: geothermal, solar, hydrogen, hydropower, fission, fusion, wind, tidal, and wave energy.
Reliability comes from diversified sources and the use of batteries.
I am concerned that this is really going to bite us in the ass some day.
Understandably. But battery technology continues to improve and there are all sorts of ways to store energy including non-electrical means such as pumped hydro storage.
Nothing is ever easy or clean. But renewables based on electricity as the means of distributing the power seems to be the right path.
Indeed, but we need to have adequate recycling technology in place to accommodate the rapidly increasing production and use of such batteries in everything from consumer electronics, to EV's, to large scale Utility size battery backup systems to complement renewable energy sources like wind and PV. See scientific article HERE . Abstract as follows:
Red emphasis mine. While the battery technology is advancing, so must the technology for proper handling and recycling of said batteries. At present the recycling technology is lagging the production and the rate of end of life discardment of such batteries. Part of the reason is that it still costs more to recycle the batteries than to create new ones, and there is very little enforcement or incentive to keep people from improperly discarding them. Although, I have been reading other trade materials, mostly from recyclers themselves who are more optimistic about turning this problem around. I certainly hope they are right.
It was the recycling that I had in mind (given the context).
That is why I mentioned the non-electrical batteries. One of the many factors that go into a more effective (societal) collective battery system.
Are you serious?
The Sun puts out more energy in 1 second than mankind has produced in the last million years. How much does it cost? Nothing, just have to collect it.
Think about it. If we could capture all the energy of the sun....for 1, (one), second, we would have power for the next 15,000 years. That's a fact. Your archaic thinking is not shocking, but it is sad.
That's all very true, but in a Northern Hemisphere winter the Sun may not shine nor the winds blow for many days. Like I said, the backup system has to be available, sooner rather than later.
I can easily imagine a future solar-based system that stores its energy using various battery technologies. Note that a battery is not necessarily electrochemical.
ChatGPT offers this list of alternative battery technologies that can be used to store energy (e.g. solar):
The point is that technology continues to advance and offer new opportunities for storing energy. As this advance continues so does the viability of solar as a primary source of energy.
But it can supplement fossil fuel powered energy and reduce our everyday need for it. And eventually it will absolutely be able to entirely replace it if we do the necessary R&D.
IMO we need to go all in on fusion power, the holy grail of energy production.
You're dreaming. Maybe in a very localized closed system. But at a nationwide or worldwide level, not very likely.
Research and development can only go so far.
And R&D has only gotten us the modern world. What the fuck do you think in your life is
if not the result of R&D, specially government funded R&D.
There was a time when people believed that 'horseless carriages' were a fad.
There was a time when the idea of stepping foot on the moon was science fiction.
There was a time when flight was believed to be impossible ... something that God did not mean for human beings to experience.
AI was once considered a pipe dream.
Quantum dynamics was dismissed as impossibly wrong.
There is a limit to what human beings can do given time, but history shows that we routinely meet and surpass what was once considered impossible.
They said the same thing about gas powered cars not so long ago.
So please tell us all how would solar and wind ever be reliable, and cheap, and able to supplement fossil fuels 100%
Do you have a time period for your exaggerated 100% replacement notion?
Nobody is talking about 100% replacement. The objective is a net reduction of harmful emissions.
At some time in the future, it is quite logical that technology will have fully supplanted fossil fuels. But that is NOT a short-term objective.
A classic case of putting the cart before the horse.
Don’t miss dealing with dumbasses that think like this.