As per the Northwest Power and Conservation Council in the US, the data centers, buildings, electrification, transit, and hydrogen production are going to drive demand.
According to the new energy forecast from regional experts, the demand when it comes to electricity across the northwest US can as well double by 2046.
It is well to be noted that in the next couple of decades, the demand could increase anywhere between 1.8% to 3.1% per year. This anticipated growth is going to come primarily due to the companies that are building more data centers across the region, more electric vehicles when it comes to on-road presence, getting buildings electrified, computer chip manufacturing units, and of course the production of green hydrogen that will be created by way of running an electrical current through water in order to split the molecules into hydrogen as well as oxygen.
Notably, the council staff went on to present the 20-year forecast when it came to electricity demand in Oregon, Idaho, Washington, as well as Western Montana, to the council governor-appointed members. Interestingly, every state governor will be able to appoint two representatives. The senior energy forecasting analyst, Steven Simmons, said that the data centers that fall naturally in their forecast are the very early load growth drivers here. They are indeed the big driver when it comes to near-term demand. Apparently, the energy demand from data centers as well as from all electric vehicles across the region is anticipated to be equal by 2046, and thereafter the demand from EVs is likely to surpass the data center demand.
The residential as well as commercial demand has in it the forecasted energy demand as far as electric vehicle charging at homes and buildings is concerned, but it does not include any data centers and is expected to grow in a more gradual way.
The demand for residential as well as commercial energy across Washington alone is going to equal the overall demand from those sectors across Idaho, Oregon, and Montana in the next couple of decades.
This energy forecast, which happens to be a part of the council’s forthcoming 9th Northwest regional power plan in order to manage the demand, does not yet include some of the possible variables that can also reduce the future demands, like enhancing energy efficiency in cars, buildings, and also some other industries in response to demand, along with growing adoption in terms of rooftop solar on commercial as well as residential buildings.
However, the rapidly growing demand now goes on to mean that both, demand for electricity grids as well as electricity across the northwest US and throughout the US are tackling transmission issues, and scaling infrastructure to meet this demand has been pretty slow because of supply chain issues and delays.
The data centers
The council staff anticipates the biggest ever growth in data center and computer chip energy demand is going to occur in Eastern Washington, Eastern Oregon, and also the Portland and Boise Metro areas. This is based on the historical trends and even the announced projects.
It is well to be noted that there are over a 100 data centers that are based in Oregon as per the Data Centre Map and there are over 5000 data centers across the US as per Statista. This is the most in any country.
Interestingly, the Data Center Market in Oregon is the fifth largest in the US, as per Cushman and Wakefield, which is a Chicago-based commercial real estate group.
It is indeed worth noting that corporate giants like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and X have huge data centers located in Eastern Oregon and also in Dalles, Prineville, and Hillsboro.
