The AI boom is driving up the demand for electricity in the United States, leading to a rapid increase in natural gas power projects. According to an analysis released by the Global Energy Monitor (GEM) on August 25th, in the first half of this year, the construction of gas-fired power generation capacity in the U.S. increased by 76% to reach 52 gigawatts (GW). The report indicates that some of this capacity will directly power data centers.
When taking into account projects that have been announced, are in the early development stages, and are currently under construction, the total gas-fired power generation capacity in the U.S. at the development stage has already reached 378 GW, a 50% increase from the 252 GW at the beginning of the year, accounting for approximately one-third of the global development capacity. GEM estimates that if all these projects are completed, the existing gas-fired power generation capacity in the U.S. will increase by about two-thirds, with an expected capital cost exceeding $647 billion.
Why does the United States need such a significant increase in gas-fired power generation? The report points to a major reason – artificial intelligence (AI) data centers.
The training and operation of AI models require massive computation, mainly carried out in data centers. As technology companies accelerate the construction of data centers, the additional power demand in the U.S. is growing rapidly. GEM statistics show that in the first half of this year, the planned gas-fired power generation capacity directly serving data centers in the U.S. nearly doubled; the total capacity of such projects has already reached 189 GW.
Among them, Texas is one of the fastest-growing regions. Currently, Texas has around 80 GW of gas-fired power generation capacity at the development stage, accounting for about one-third of all development pipelines in the U.S.; about 40 GW of it is planned to directly power data centers.
In order to quickly provide power to AI data centers, some developers are turning to gas reciprocating engines and small gas turbines.
According to GEM data, the capacity of engine power generation at the development stage in the U.S. has increased from 31 GW to 67 GW in the past six months; the engine capacity directly related to data centers has increased from less than 15 GW to around 45 GW. However, the report notes that there is still significant uncertainty about how many of these projects will actually be completed in the end.
The report also points out that over three-quarters of gas-fired power projects globally are still in the early development stage. In the first half of this year, some projects have been delayed from their original production schedules. Moreover, some projects related to data centers have not yet even determined the gas turbine or engine manufacturers, and nearly a quarter have not confirmed the commissioning year.