EIA forecasts US electricity use rising 1% in 2026 and 3% in 2027, driven largely by large computing facilities including data centres — which would be the first four-year run of demand growth since 2007
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) published its first energy-sector forecasts through 2027 in the January Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO). The EIA expects U.S. electricity use to grow by 1% in 2026 and 3% in 2027. This would be the first time since 2007 that power demand has risen for four years in a row, driven by increasing demand from large computing facilities.
Verified 2026-08-08
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Sustained growth in US power demand is new after years of flat use, and data centres are a key reason.
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- American Electric Power, one of the largest US utilities, which counts hyperscalers and manufacturers among its new large customers, signed fresh load commitments in the third quarter of 2026 and now expects its contracted extra load to reach 84 GW by 2031 AEP signed 15 GW of new load commitments in a single quarter
- AI data centres worldwide reached a power capacity comparable to New York State at peak demand in 2025, which Stanford's AI Index puts at 29.6 gigawatts
- OpenAI does not disclose GPT-4o's resource footprint, so Stanford's 2026 AI Index Report turned to independent researchers' estimates of the water needed to cool the servers behind it — as much as 1.58 million kilolitres a year — more than 1.2 million people drink annually
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