Almost all US power grids will lack critical spare capacity by 2030 as demand surges to supply data centers, with bottlenecks threatening to hand China an edge in the artificial-intelligence boom, according to an analyst at Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
Unless addressed, those constraints may ultimately allow China to pull ahead in the AI race, said Samantha Dart, Goldman’s co-head of global commodities research.
“We aren’t adding enough capacity,” she said, speaking Tuesday at the Goldman Sachs Energy, CleanTech and Utilities Conference in Miami.
Grids typically target a reserve margin of at least 15% — the gap between peak demand and available generation from coal, natural gas, nuclear and renewable plants. Some grids are already falling short, and the shortfall is set to widen through the decade as data centers help drive demand growth, Dart said.
The US, a patchwork of regional grids and thousands of utilities running smaller networks, is struggling to ramp up infrastructure investment after two decades of largely stagnant growth.
While the Trump administration has made the AI race a priority, staying ahead will depend on whether regulators can cut red tape, update antiquated market rules and move quickly to modernize aging infrastructure. At the same time, energy inflation is becoming a growing political and economic challenge as data centers push up utility bills that were already rising to maintain the grid and recover from extreme weather and wildfires.
Rising utility bills will likely be a key issue in gubernatorial elections scheduled for later this year in 36 states, said Carly Davenport, Goldman’s head of US power and utilities equity research, speaking on the same panel as Dart.
Over the past two years, average US utility bills climbed about 9%, with increases of roughly 20% in New York City and Maryland, while costs declined in Florida and New Hampshire, she said.
Photo: A power substation in Santa Clara, California. Photographer: Jason Henry/Bloomberg
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