WEMO24-Compiled Report-Interactive compressed (002) 4154-7882-8116 v.1 - Flipbook - Page 114
SMRs are part
of the answer
Rapidly Evolving Demand
FIGURE 3
The above reference report was released in October, 2023 and
well before the exponential growth of AI that was observed in
2023 after the late 2022 release of ChatGPT. AI is a wild-card
in the already rapidly evolving demand forecasting to support
net zero targets.
Projections of potential electricity consumptions by USA data centers: 2023-2030. % of 2030 electricity
consumption projections assume that all other (non-data center load increases at 1% annually.
ANNUAL GROWTH RATE
500
SCENARIO
400
300
%OFF 2030
ELECTRICITY
CONSUMPTION
Low growth
3.7%
4.6%
Moderate growth
5%
5.0%
High growth
10%
6.8%
Higher growth
15%
9.1%
200
Max
Average historical data
100
Min
0
2000
2005
Source: https://www.epri.com/research/products/3002028905
2010
2015
2020
2025
2030
WEMO 2024
Electric Power Research Institute’s Powering Intelligence 2024
White Paper projects data center demand will double by 2026
and represent 9% of the total USA demand by 2030.
600
114
As a result, there are several interesting development by the
hyperscalers to secure clean energy. In March of 2024, AWS
acquired a 960MW nuclear powered data center from Talen
at their Susquehanna Nuclear Station. Microsoft, Google, and
Nucor joined forces to aggregate their energy demands to
promote and secure clean energy, to include nuclear power.
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Electricity Consumption (TWh/y)
09
