Data center boom may drive US grid modernization, industry leaders say

The AI boom has led to a gargantuan surge in energy demand across the country, and critics say the new connections are stress-testing America’s aging grid infrastructure. Worries include surging electrical bills in the short term and possible outages or other technical problems in the long term. At TechCrunch Disrupt earlier this month, industry insiders said the flood of new energy connections could also open the door to grid modernization.

Grid stress and new opportunities

Apoorv Bhargava, founder and CEO of WeaveGrid, Tim Heidel, CEO of Veir, and Kristin Eberhard, VP of policy at Rewiring America, said the grid faces new challenges but also new opportunities. Bhargava said utilities are now grappling with renewable energy, electric vehicles, data centers and heat pumps, and the ability to manage and orchestrate them. WeaveGrid’s software can help organizations efficiently deploy energy while also optimizing connections to reduce utility payers’ bills, he said.

Physical infrastructure and funding

Heidel runs Veir, which sells superconductive power lines that promise to transfer energy at a much more efficient rate than traditional ones. The company has said its cables can carry power five times farther than traditional cables while requiring 20 times less space. Earlier this month the startup raised $110 million in a Series C funding round. Heidel said the scale of investment in AI infrastructure is driving a tremendous amount of innovation and that new technologies can help data centers be better community neighbors.

Household electrification and urgency

Eberhard, whose organization advocates for household electrification, said the surge in data center energy demand has spurred new urgency for modernization and created an environment where industries are ready to try new things. She described the era of AI and load growth as “a very improv era,” with “a lot of yes-and-ing going on,” and said the country needs more transmission lines and more centralized power plants while also using resources that had previously been left on the table.

Sources: TechCrunch