Data Center Construction Propels Electric Load Growth and Utility Capex

April 16, 2024--Written by John Egan for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Construction of data centers in the U.S. has been growing strongly in recent years, and the growth will escalate even further for the next few years, which is helping drive up electricity demand and capital expenditures (Capex) at electric utilities across the country.

This year, about 289 data center projects are scheduled to begin construction across the U.S., according to Industrial Info's Global Marketing Intelligence (GMI) platform. The total investment value (TIV) of those projects is approximately $75 billion. In 2025, companies plan to begin construction on about 210 data centers domestically, at a cost of roughly $101 billion. By contrast, only 13 data centers were constructed in the U.S. in 2017, and 26 were built in 2019.