Add actual supply
The IEA expects renewables to meet nearly half of global data-center demand growth through 2030. Gas and coal together still meet more than 40%. The near-term answer is a mixed grid, not a clean-energy slogan.
Must GoOpen the translator
Power investigation 02
The grid has received your application.
Berkeley Lab’s reference case puts U.S. data centers at 11.8% of national electricity use in 2030. The demand is real. The grid is not required to remain exactly the size it was before the application arrived.
Inspect the power planThe short answer
Build power. Build wires. Send the bill to the new customer.
Efficiency and flexible demand can reduce how much must be built. Neither one manufactures electricity.
Move it to the load
Power plants do not help a constrained campus without substations and transmission. The IEA says new transmission can take four to eight years in advanced economies.
Charge the cost causer
Separate large-load rates, long contracts, minimum monthly charges, collateral, and exit fees reduce the chance that a canceled campus leaves households paying for dedicated infrastructure.
Move work away from peaks
Training, batch processing, and spare server capacity can sometimes pause or shift. A Phoenix field test cut one 256-GPU cluster’s power 25% for three hours while maintaining the tested service guarantees.
Do more work per watt
Better chips, networking, cooling, utilization, and software reduce energy per unit of computing. They do not guarantee lower total electricity if demand grows faster than efficiency.
≈50%Renewables
>40%Natural gas + coal
Both numbers belong in the same sentence.
Virginia’s answer
Electricity has not been generated by paperwork.
But paperwork can stop the dedicated bill from wandering into somebody else’s mailbox.
25 MWThreshold for the separate GS-5 large-load class
14 yearsMinimum service commitment for covered new large loads
85%Minimum billed transmission and distribution costs, regardless of use
Panic
Virginia made data centers pay for most of their reserved grid capacity. This confirms the capacity was extremely guilty.
Actual factVirginia’s new rules take effect in 2027 and are designed to reduce cost shifting and stranded-infrastructure risk. They allocate cost. Utilities still have to build or procure enough generation and transmission, and rules differ across states and utility territories.
Two pressure valves
Use fewer watts per job. Use fewer jobs at the peak.
Efficiency changes the energy per task. Flexibility changes when the task runs.
Field demonstration
25% for 3hOne cluster stepped down
A peer-reviewed Phoenix test used software orchestration, not new batteries, to reduce a 256-GPU cluster’s demand during peak hours. It does not prove every facility or latency-sensitive workload can do the same.
Manufacturer benchmark
Up to 30×More agent work per megawatt
NVIDIA reports that Vera Rubin NVL72 delivered up to 30 times the throughput per megawatt of GB300 NVL72 on selected agentic coding trajectories. It is an NVIDIA measurement of a specific workload, pending the named third-party review, not a promise of 30 times lower facility electricity.
A real build
Hyperion did not solve this with a very long extension cord.
The original Louisiana plan added 2,262 megawatts of gas generation plus transmission. That is new supply. It is also new fossil infrastructure.
3Combined-cycle gas plants in the 2025 approved settlement
2,262 MWCombined installed capacity in the initial service plan
2028–29Expected in-service window stated in the regulatory record
Meta’s July 2026 expansion announcement says the broader 5-gigawatt project will fund seven gas-fueled generating plants, three grid batteries, nuclear uprates, and purchased power. That is the proponent’s answer in concrete form: finance incremental supply and grid work, then put the terms through utility regulation. Whether the resulting mix is affordable, reliable, and clean enough remains a legitimate public argument.
The other side of town
One county got 38% of its general-fund revenue. One parish gave teachers a year’s pay.
The fiscal upside can be enormous. It can also be temporary, uneven, subsidized, or badly negotiated.
Loudoun County, Virginia
38%of FY2026 general-fund revenue
County records say data centers occupied about 4% of commercial parcels while supplying 38% of general-fund revenue. The county used the revenue to support schools and services, lower tax rates, and fully fund a $119.7 million stabilization reserve for data-center revenue swings.
Richland Parish, Louisiana
$50,935top 2026 certified-employee bonus
Many experienced certified school employees received the full payment, while classified staff received $17,472. The district tied the unusually large checks to construction-driven sales-tax growth and expects elevated bonuses during Hyperion’s buildout.
Panic
Public schools have begun accepting suspicious money from buildings.
Actual factThe Richland payout is a construction-era windfall, not a guaranteed permanent benefit. Loudoun is a mature, unusually dense market. Neither example proves that every project produces a good net deal after tax incentives, infrastructure, land, noise, water, or power costs.
Source records
Count the megawatts. Follow the money.
01Berkeley Lab, U.S. Data Center Energy Usage Report: 2025 Update2030 reference case and uncertainty scenarios02International Energy Agency, Energy and AIPhysical generation mix and grid-build timelines03Virginia State Corporation Commission, data center initiativesGS-5 rate class, minimum charges, contracts, and collateral04Nature Energy, grid-interactive AI data centersA 256-GPU field demonstration of flexible power demand05NVIDIA, Vera Rubin performance per wattManufacturer benchmark for selected agentic workloads06Louisiana Public Service Commission, Order U-37425Initial Hyperion generation and transmission settlement07Louisiana PSC docket testimony, April 20252,262-megawatt initial generation plan and in-service dates08Meta, Richland Parish expansion announcementBroader generation, storage, nuclear, and purchased-power plan09GovTech and The Advocate, Richland Parish teacher bonusesConstruction-era sales-tax receipts and 2026 payouts10Loudoun County, FY 2026 Budget StoryGeneral-fund share and revenue stabilization11Loudoun County, Data CentersCurrent land-use and tax-base context