US utilities have committed to connect more than 160GW of new large-load demand, according to new analysis from Wood Mackenzie.

In its report, “Up, up and away,” it showed that utilities across the PJM Interconnection region alone anticipate 55GW of new demand by 2030 and 100GW by 2037, far exceeding the amount of new generation currently planned.

“PJM utilities have committed to serve twice as much new large-load demand as there is new power generation being developed to support it,” said Ben Hertz-Shargel, global head of Grid Edge at Wood Mackenzie. “This imbalance could lead to shortages and higher electricity costs in the Mid-Atlantic.”

The report noted significant inconsistencies in how different utilities forecast future demand, with wide variation in assumptions about ramp-up timing and the ratio of expected demand to secured generation. Wood Mackenzie stressed that these discrepancies make it harder for planners to identify where and when new capacity will be required.

The report also noted that while Dominion Energy - Virginia’s primary electrical utility - remains closely linked to the data center boom, it is not one of the four utilities forecasting more than 11GW of growth by 2040. However, according to recent reporting, the CEO of Dominion Energy, Robert Blue, recently said that he expects “demand to double by the year 2039, driven by no small part by expansion of the data centers industry." To meet the demand, Dominion is planning to install more than 33GW of new generation over the next 20 years.

Despite this, Virginia remains the primary focal point of data center growth, with three of the six largest utilities projecting around 30GW of combined new large-load demand there. Two-thirds of total growth is expected within the Dominion, American Electric Power, and PPL service areas.

The forecasts from Wood Mackenzie mirror those of other firms in the space. Earlier this month, S&P Global reported that data centers across the US will require 22 percent more grid-based power by the end of the year, compared to last year. The report also revealed that data centers will require nearly three times as much grid-based power by 2030 as they did last year.

Despite the immense growth projections, demand has been tempered somewhat by the introduction of new data center tariffs in several states to force developers to bear more of the costs for the generation and transmission infrastructure required to serve the facilities.

In the S&P report, it was noted that some utilities are reporting declining data center interconnection requests as a result of these new tariffs. S&P highlighted AEP Ohio's recent announcement that it had cut its data center pipeline in half, with demand falling from more than 30GW to 13GW.

The reduction, according to AEP Ohio, was the result of a new data center tariff, approved by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) in July, that required data centers to pay for a portion of their energy requests, even if the electricity is not ultimately needed. Due to the tariff, AEP was able to remove "the most speculative or uncertain data center projects," said a spokesperson.