Data centers comprise the backbone of the modern internet and are a growing source of power demand in the Pacific Northwest – and across the U.S. – as use of artificial intelligence increases.

The Council’s Power Division staff are gearing up to officially commence working on the Ninth Power Plan in February 2025. The energy needs of data centers, chip fabrication facilities, and the tech sector will play a prominent role in in the next plan, which the Council aims to adopt by the end of 2026. Under the Northwest Power Act, one of the Council’s primary responsibilities is to forecast load over the next 20 years, and then develop a plan for acquiring the cost-effective resources that will meet that demand in a way that ensures an adequate, efficient, economical, and reliable power supply for the Pacific Northwest.

Power Division staff are currently working on an updated load forecast for the Northwest power system – including data centers, chip fabrication facilities, and the tech sector – and expect to have it ready by spring 2025. At its December meeting, the Council convened a panel of experts to discuss the energy needs of data centers, including what potential they may or may not have to be efficient and flexible.

The Council heard from Dr. Sarah Smith, Research Scientist with Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Brian Janous, Co-Founder of Cloverleaf Infrastructure and former Vice President of Energy for Microsoft, and Robert Cromwell, consultant and former Vice President of Power Supply for Central Oregon’s Umatilla Electric Cooperative, which has several large data centers as part of its growing customer base. (Read presentation | watch video)

Janous started off by noting that data center growth in the Northwest is likely to be constrained until 2030 by the availability of electricity to meet their needs, but there are opportunities to unlock incremental power on the existing system between now and then. He cited grid-enhancing technologies and storage as two options that can be scaled up quickly. He noted that tech companies are willing to invest in expanding energy infrastructure to serve large loads, but cautioned that they want certainty that their investments will make it through the power grid’s planning and regulatory systems efficiently and result in energy and capacity on the other side.

“It really forces us to then think about how we enable that runway for making these huge investments,” Janous said. “What are things we can do between now and 2030?”

Smith discussed a new report Berkeley Lab will be publishing soon, which examines data center power needs down to the equipment level, and then builds up from there. After growing quickly in the 2000s, data center power demand in the U.S. was largely flat in the 2010s. That’s changed in the past several years, especially with the arrival and rapid scaling of new artificial intelligence technologies.

“The electricity use had somewhat stabilized for a few years,” Smith said of the 2010s. “We are in that growth phase again and climbing up what’s hopefully an s-curve and not an ‘exponential-forever’ curve.”

Cromwell spoke to the Northwest power system’s ability to expand quickly. He warned about a repeat of the winter storm that occurred over the Martin Luther King holiday weekend in January 2024. During that storm, natural gas and renewable power supplies were disrupted while other key grid infrastructure was down for planned maintenance, causing utilities and energy providers to import over 5,000 MW of electricity from the southwest U.S. at high prices. While this specific event was not connected to data center load growth, the Council recognizes the importance of understanding how additional load might further constrain the system during periods of extreme weather.

Expected impacts of climate change include more extreme weather events hitting the Northwest, as well as shifts in temperatures and precipitation. For upcoming work on the Ninth Power Plan, the Council will continue to collaborate with the region on how to best capture climate change and weather impacts in power system modeling. Power Division staff will be presenting on the subject of capturing extreme weather data in its ninth plan analysis at the January Council meeting.

Cromwell addressed transmission constraints in the Northwest’s power system, and getting energy from where it’s generated to where it’s consumed. There’s a growing backlog of prospective energy projects seeking to connect to the transmission system. In general, resource and transmission lines will need to speed up to meet data center growth, he said.

“We need a much faster turn-around,” Cromwell said. “Everything has to start happening on a much faster cadence.”

One point of discussion was the efficiency and flexibility potential of data centers’ energy needs. Janous said there wasn’t great potential for demand response because data centers’ servers are highly utilized, but he pointed to behind-the-meter generation as an opportunity to leverage for flexibility. Smith agreed, and cited a Microsoft data center in Wyoming that has behind-the-meter gas-fired generation; its local utility, Black Hills Energy, can access the generation during periods of peak demand.

Janous said tech companies are highly motivated to address the energy needs of data centers – and would be willing to invest in solutions.

“There’s so much capital that wants to invest in energy infrastructure,” Janous said. “The problem you have is that there’s not that many opportunities right now to invest that capital efficiently. This is where utilities and grid operators and planners come in. It’s to say, ‘How can we create a pathway where, if you want to make that investment in our region, here’s how you can do it.’ That’s where the big investment firms are struggling right now. Investible projects are few and far between right now.”

Council Chair Jeff Allen, who represents Idaho, prefaced the panel discussion by emphasizing how important it is to hit the mark on energy demand for data centers, chip fabrication, and the tech sector in the Ninth Power Plan. The Northwest Power Act’s passage in 1980 stemmed from the ongoing fallout of a failure in load forecasting in the 1960s and 70s that resulted in over-building the Pacific Northwest's power system.

“It’s certainly something we’ve got to get right as we start working on the next Power Plan,” Allen said. “As an organization that sprung up from the hubris of a massive over-forecast in the past, it’s very obvious that this will be a key part of our next power plan. We’ve got to right-size this.”

Council Vice-Chair KC Golden of Washington agreed, and said a key component of the Northwest Power Act is to provide a public, regional forum where major power system issues like this can be addressed.

“We’re interested in everything we can learn about the sources of load growth, and what we need to know as we do our forecasts and planning,” Golden said. “We want to open up the conversation with the region more. (We want) to shine a little bit more daylight, understand this better, and involve more of the region in the conversation.”