In the United States, AI data centre growth is limited less by chips than by getting power connected. Dominion Energy in Virginia reports about 54 GW of contracted data centre capacity. Texas has requests over five times its record demand. Georgia has certified almost 10 GW of new generation, mostly for data centres. Most of those gigawatts are contracts or requests, not buildings.
This post is the overview. It compares the three hubs where public sources say the most, explains the national numbers behind them, and shows how to tell a request from a building. For the full Texas rulebook, see our detailed post on Texas SB 6 and ERCOT Batch Zero.
Key numbers at a glance
- US data centre share of national electricity in 2023: about 4.4 percent (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory report, as summarised by the Department of Energy, 20 December 2024).
- Projected US share by 2028: 6.7 to 12 percent, a scenario range (same source).
- US data centre electricity use: 58 TWh in 2014 and 176 TWh in 2023, projected 325 to 580 TWh by 2028 (same source).
- PJM peak hourly load record: 162.6 GW on 2 July 2026, 1.3 percent above its 2025 record (US Energy Information Administration, 15 October 2026).
- ERCOT peak hourly load record: 91.1 GW on 22 July 2026, 6.5 percent above its previous record (same EIA article).
- ERCOT large load requests: more than 474 GW, about 90 percent data centres (Office of the Texas Governor, 3 August 2026).
- Dominion Energy contracted data centre capacity: about 53.8 GW as of July 2026, up 5.3 GW from December (Reuters, as relayed by MarketScale, 9 August 2026).
- Dominion Virginia segment adjusted operating earnings, second quarter 2026: 670 million dollars, up 22 percent (same source).
- Georgia Power new generation certified on 19 December 2025: 9,985 MW, about 80 percent expected to serve data centres (Georgia Public Service Commission fact sheet, September 2026).
- Georgia Power's estimate of new generation needed over seven years: 400 MW in 2022, 6,600 MW in 2023 and 8,500 MW in 2025 (same fact sheet).
- Georgia Power base rate freeze: ordered 31 July 2025, through 2028 (same fact sheet).
Terms you need
A gigawatt (GW) is 1,000 megawatts (MW). One GW is roughly the output of a large power plant. A terawatt hour (TWh) is a measure of energy used over time, not of power at one moment.
An interconnection queue is the waiting list of projects that have asked the grid operator or utility to connect. Joining the queue is cheap. Being built is not. That is why queue totals overstate what will happen.
A large load is a big electricity customer, usually defined as a single site above a size threshold. Texas uses 75 MW.
An electric service agreement (ESA) is a signed contract between a utility and a customer to supply a set amount of power. It is firmer than an informal request, but even an ESA is not a built data centre.
A regional transmission organisation (RTO) runs the wholesale market and high voltage grid across a region. PJM covers Virginia and a dozen other states. ERCOT covers most of Texas. Georgia is not in an RTO; Georgia Power plans and builds its own supply under the Georgia Public Service Commission.
A minimum bill is a charge a large customer pays even if it uses less power than it contracted for. It protects other customers if a data centre arrives late, shrinks or leaves.
The national picture
The main federal estimate is the 2024 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory report, funded by the Department of Energy and written in response to a request in the Energy Act of 2020. DOE's summary says US data centres used about 4.4 percent of national electricity in 2023, up from 58 TWh in 2014 to 176 TWh in 2023. It projected 6.7 to 12 percent of electricity by 2028, or 325 to 580 TWh, and said data centre load had roughly tripled over the past decade and could double or triple again by 2028. The wide range is the honest part: it depends on how fast AI servers are bought and how they are run. The report is a projection made in late 2024, so see our comparison of AI data centre electricity demand forecasts for how newer estimates differ.
DOE also listed what it was doing in response: supporting on site generation and storage so data centres can act as a grid asset, reusing infrastructure at retired coal plants, and working on rate designs that let expansion happen while keeping power affordable. Those three themes, flexibility, location and who pays, are exactly where the state hubs below are now acting.
Grid stress is real, but it is not proven to be about data centres. The EIA reported on 15 October 2026 that PJM, ERCOT and the Southwest Power Pool all set peak hourly load records in summer 2026. PJM reached 162.6 GW on 2 July, about 1.3 percent above its 2025 record. ERCOT reached 91.1 GW on 22 July, about 6.5 percent above its previous record. SPP reached 58.0 GW on 27 July, 3.5 percent above its 2023 record. Four other grids, CAISO, ISO New England, NYISO and MISO, came close without breaking records. The EIA attributed the peaks mainly to regional heat waves in the hottest summer on record nationally and did not mention data centres, so no fair reading of that article can say how much of the records they caused.
Virginia: the oldest hub, still growing
Northern Virginia is served mainly by Dominion Energy and sits inside PJM. MarketScale, relaying Reuters coverage of Dominion's 31 July 2026 results, reported about 53.8 GW of contracted data centre capacity as of July 2026, up 5.3 GW from December. Dominion's Virginia segment adjusted operating earnings rose 22 percent year on year to 670 million dollars, which the report linked to data centre demand. Dominion serves 3.6 million electric customers across Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, the same report said.
What "contracted" means matters. A utility's contracted total can include several stages, from early engineering work to signed service agreements and construction. Not all of it will be built, and the public reporting used here does not break the 53.8 GW down by stage. Dominion's own third quarter results, due on 30 October 2026 according to the company, are the place to look for that split.
There is a corporate event in the background. MarketScale reported that NextEra Energy and Dominion announced a 66.8 billion dollar merger in May 2026, with key evidentiary hearings due to start on 17 November 2026 and a close expected in the second half of 2027, according to NextEra's chief executive. That is a company announcement under regulatory review, not a done deal.
Virginia's other live question is who pays. The state's legislative watchdog studied its data centre sales tax exemption and the effect of data centre growth on power costs; our post on Virginia's data centre tax exemption and the JLARC findings covers that in detail.
Why Virginia matters for software and security teams: concentration. A large share of internet infrastructure sits in one region, so a regional power or network problem has outsized effects. Our post on how long it takes to build an AI data centre explains why new capacity cannot appear quickly elsewhere to offset that.
Texas: the biggest queue, in brief
ERCOT is weighing more than 474 GW of large load requests, about 90 percent from data centres, which the Governor's office on 3 August 2026 called more than five times the grid's record peak; the EIA puts that record at 91.1 GW on 22 July 2026. Texas now screens large loads of 75 MW and above under Senate Bill 6, studies them in batches starting with Batch Zero, and has ordered an audit of every data centre in the process. Our Texas SB 6 and Batch Zero explainer has the dated queue timeline, the statute's provisions, the batch rules and the first co-location ruling.
Georgia: a utility that planned for data centres in public
Georgia offers the clearest primary record of the three, because the Georgia Public Service Commission has published a data centre fact sheet, updated September 2026, that sets out its decisions in order.
The demand estimate moved fast. In 2022 Georgia Power estimated it would need only 400 MW of new generation over the next seven years. By 2023 that estimate was 6,600 MW, and two years later it was 8,500 MW, against about 22,000 MW the utility deploys statewide, according to the fact sheet. The commission attributes the change to the spread of data centres.
The cost rules came first. In April 2024 the commission ordered Georgia Power to ensure data centre revenue reduces rather than raises residential bills, to file quarterly reports tracking new data centres, and to file cost allocation studies. In January 2025 it approved a rule allowing minimum billing requirements and longer contract terms for new large load customers, so data centres keep paying for new infrastructure even if they leave, and requiring Georgia Power to share new data centre contracts with the commission at least 30 days before signing. In April 2025 it approved new price structures for large load customers. On 31 July 2025 it froze Georgia Power base rates through 2028.
Then came the generation. On 19 December 2025 the commission approved an agreement certifying 9,985 MW of new generation, about 80 percent of it expected to power data centres. Georgia Power agreed to backstop the costs of that new generation through 2031, meaning that if data centre contracts fall short, the utility rather than existing customers pays the associated costs in that period.
The contracts followed. On 26 August 2026 commission staff reviewed a 3,200 MW contract between Georgia Power and a data centre company. Alongside it, Georgia Power agreed not to seek recovery from residential and small business customers of incremental costs if a data centre ends a contract early, to raise its expected downward pressure on typical residential bills from 8.50 dollars to at least 15 dollars a month in 2029 to 2031, and to publish a twice yearly report on data centre customers. With that contract, the commission says Georgia Power had customers for all 9,985 MW, four months ahead of the one year target.
The commission's homepage also lists Georgia Power's 2026 all source capacity request for proposals for need years 2032 to 2033, posted on 16 March 2026. The page does not say how much of that need comes from data centres.
Georgia is a useful contrast with Texas. Texas is filtering a vast, mostly speculative queue. Georgia's regulator planned a fixed block of new supply, tied it to signed contracts and wrote down who pays if those contracts fail. Both approaches aim to stop ordinary customers carrying the risk of data centre growth.
Other states
Several other states have written their own large load terms. Our posts on Ohio's AEP data centre tariff and Louisiana's Meta and Amazon projects cover two of them. Arizona and Pennsylvania are not covered here because primary sources comparable to those used for Virginia, Texas and Georgia were not available at the time of writing.
How to read these numbers
- Ask whether a figure is a request, an engineering study, a signed contract, certified generation, a construction start or energised capacity. Each step cuts the number.
- Check the date. Georgia Power's seven year need estimate went from 400 MW to 8,500 MW in three years, and queue counts can double within months.
- Check who published it. Utility filings, regulator orders and government statistics beat newsletters and investor blogs.
- Watch the shift from price to access. States are now deciding who pays, who must disclose, and who is cut off first in a shortage.
What is firm and what is uncertain
Firm:
- Berkeley Lab and DOE published the 4.4 percent and 6.7 to 12 percent figures.
- The EIA reported summer 2026 peak load records in PJM, ERCOT and SPP.
- Georgia's commission certified 9,985 MW of new generation on 19 December 2025, froze base rates through 2028 and adopted minimum bill and contract rules for large loads.
- Texas applies a 75 MW threshold and batch studies, and ordered a data centre audit in August 2026.
Uncertain:
- How much of Dominion's 53.8 GW and ERCOT's 474 GW will ever be built.
- The split of Dominion's contracted capacity by stage, which public reporting does not give.
- Whether data centres drove the summer 2026 peak loads.
- Whether the NextEra and Dominion merger closes.
- How much of Georgia Power's 2032 to 2033 capacity need is for data centres.
What to watch next
- Dominion's third quarter 2026 results on 30 October 2026, for an updated contracted capacity figure.
- Merger hearings starting on 17 November 2026.
- Georgia Power's twice yearly data centre report and its 2032 to 2033 capacity procurement.
- ERCOT's audit updates and Batch Zero results, due 9 April 2027.
- New Berkeley Lab or EIA updates to national demand estimates.
Quick check
Does a big queue mean that much power will be used?
No. A queue counts requests, and only a small fraction of ERCOT's requests had been connected in 2026. Our Texas post sets out the dated figures. Even contracted capacity, like Dominion's, is not the same as built capacity.
How is Georgia protecting other customers from data centre costs?
Its commission adopted minimum bills and longer contracts for large loads, froze Georgia Power base rates through 2028, and had Georgia Power backstop new generation costs through 2031.
Did data centres cause the 2026 summer peak records?
That cannot be said from the evidence. The EIA attributed the records mainly to heat waves and did not mention data centres.
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Sources
- DOE releases new report evaluating increase in electricity demand from data centers, 20 December 2024
- 2024 United States Data Center Energy Usage Report, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 19 December 2024
- PJM, ERCOT, and SPP all set peak load records this summer, EIA Today in Energy, 15 October 2026
- Governor Abbott Directs Comprehensive Data Center Audit, Office of the Texas Governor, 3 August 2026
- Dominion's 53.8 GW data center backlog and a 66.8 billion dollar merger, MarketScale, 9 August 2026
- Dominion Energy Schedules Third-Quarter 2026 Earnings Call, Dominion Energy, 7 October 2026
- Georgia Public Service Commission homepage
- Data Center Fact Sheet, Georgia Public Service Commission, September 2026
Last reviewed: 19 October 2026.
