US data center power use set to more than double by 2030

US data centers consumed 183 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2024, more than 4 percent of all national electricity use, and are projected to reach 426 terawatt-hours by 2030, a 133 percent increase, according to a July report from the Kansas Health Institute led by Emma Uridge. The same report puts direct water consumption at 17 billion gallons in 2023, with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory modeling that it could double or quadruple by 2028.

Why it matters

For anyone siting a data center, this is the number that determines whether a deal is real. The country needs more than 230 gigawatts of new generating capacity over the next five years and utilities have planned roughly 93, leaving a gap north of 100 gigawatts. Data centers alone could add about 125 gigawatts of load through 2031. Announced capacity and buildable capacity have separated, and the difference is interconnection.

Water is the second constraint and the one that decides local politics. About 20 percent of US data centers were already operating in water-stressed regions as of 2020. A campus that needs both a substation upgrade and a municipal water commitment is asking a county for two things it may not have, which is how a project that pencils on paper dies at a commission meeting.

The numbers

The 2024 mix behind that 183 terawatt-hours was 56 percent fossil fuels, 22 percent renewables and 21 percent nuclear. New York in July became the first state to impose a moratorium on new data center development, suspending large projects for one year pending environmental assessment.

What’s next

Underwrite power and water as entitlement risk, not utility line items, and pursue sites where generation is already in the queue rather than sites where it is merely planned. Watch whether other states follow New York’s pause, because a second one turns a local pattern into a national siting rule. More national coverage.