Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Sparks

Georgia Just Released Eye-Popping New Energy Demand Estimates

We’ll give you one guess as to what’s behind the huge spike.

Matthew Zeitlin •
11/20/2024
A data center.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Georgia is going to need a lot more electricity than it once thought. Again.

In a filing last week with the state’s utility regulator, Georgia Power disclosed that its projected load growth for the next decade from “economic development projects” has gone up by over 12,000 megawatts, to 36,500 megawatts. Just for 2028 to 2029, the pipeline has more than tripled, from 6,000 megawatts to 19,990 megawatts, destined for so-called “large load” projects like new data centers and factories.

To give you an idea of just how much power Georgia businesses will demand over the next decade, the two new recently booted up nuclear reactors at Vogtle each have a capacity of around 1,000 megawatts. Of the listed projects that may come online, five will require 1,000 megawatts or more.

The culprit is largely data centers. About 3,330 megawatts’ worth of data centers have broken ground in Georgia, and just over 4,100 megawatts are pending construction, vastly outstripping commitments made by industrial customers.

“New load growth, led predominately by data centers, could triple [Georgia Power’s] size, in ten years. This is the second industrial revolution, led by artificial intelligence,” Simon Mahan, the executive director of the Southern Renewable Energy Association, wrote on X.

Georgia Power is used to upgrading load forecasts. The company had to update its three-year planning process (known as an integrated resource plan, or IRP) in October of 2023, just a year after releasing its previous three-year plan, as its five-year load growth projections had grown from 400 megawatts to 6,660 megawatts, a 17-fold increase. Regulators approved the new plan in April of this year, which included adding turbines to an existing gas-fired plant, pushing out the retirement of a coal-fired plant, and more battery storage.

The latest update, Georgia Power said in the filing, “should provide further certainty that Georgia Power’s load forecast is materializing and that the constructive outcome of the 2023 IRP Update is supportive of economic growth in Georgia.”

Yellow
Matthew Zeitlin profile image

Matthew Zeitlin

Matthew is a correspondent at Heatmap. Previously he was an economics reporter at Grid, where he covered macroeconomics and energy, and a business reporter at BuzzFeed News, where he covered finance. He has written for The New York Times, the Guardian, Barron's, and New York Magazine.

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe to access Heatmap’s expert analysis of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability. Save $57 on an annual subscription, just $156 $99/year.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
Continue with Google
or
Please enter an email address
Continue
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Or try a month of unlimited access to Heatmap for free
Sparks

Koloma Strikes New Hydrogen Exploration Deal in the Philippines

The deal, shared exclusively with Heatmap, is the startup’s third in the oil-importing country.

Ameya Hadap •
07/23/2026
A Koloma worker.
Heatmap Illustration/Koloma, Getty Images

Hydrogen fuel comes in myriad forms. There’s green hydrogen, which is extracted from water molecules using zero-carbon electricity. There’s blue hydrogen, derived from methane and scrubbed clean by carbon capture. And then there’s white hydrogen. Otherwise known as natural or geologic hydrogen, this type of hydrogen comes directly from naturally occurring deposits in the earth, can accumulate in considerable quantities and concentrations, and is highly energy-efficient to extract compared to manufacturing pathways such as electrolyzers and steam methane reforming.

It’s a seductive promise, but finding deposits with enough hydrogen to make the economics of exploration work is difficult. That’s where Koloma comes in. The startup uses a bespoke subsurface data set, which its founders developed over 20-plus years, to flag the areas most likely to hold sufficient hydrogen, after which they can extract it for power and derivative fuels.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Sparks

Data Centers Will Use Enough Electricity to Power Every U.S. Household by 2035

The latest forecast from BloombergNEF raises its estimate for AI electricity demand by 83%.

Trisha Gupta •
07/21/2026
A data center and power lines.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Energy analysts at BloombergNEF predicted last year that U.S. data center electricity demand would reach 106 gigawatts within the next decade. In its latest outlook, released Tuesday, the group increased its forecast by 83%, to 194 gigawatts — enough to light up 150 million homes, or roughly every single household in the country today.

Even that may be a conservative estimate. If data center developers were to max out the total number of the high-powered chips used to train and operate AI models forecast to be delivered by 2035, electricity demand would reach 229 gigawatts.

Keep reading...Show less
Green
Sparks

Microsoft Sustainability Chief Hounded by Protestors at Seattle Climate Week

“Microsoft, you can’t hide, we can see your dirty side!”

Katie Brigham •
07/17/2026
Melanie Nakagawa.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images, Katie Brigham

Protestors interrupted one of the final sessions of PNW Climate Week — a conference that brings together climate leaders across Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia — objecting to Microsoft’s rising carbon emissions from data centers and partnerships with oil and gas companies. The company’s Chief Sustainability Officer Melanie Nakagawa was having a one on one conversation with GeekWire climate reporter Lisa Stiffler at Seattle’s City Hall when protestors carrying signs reading “Microsoft’s AI pollutes” and other slogans began shouting from the audience.

I was there, having just moderated the prior panel on how to finance Washington’s clean energy ambitions. Early on there were some rumblings in the crowd from up front. “Climate leaders don’t build gas pipelines in Moses Lake,” was the first objection I heard clearly. It came shortly after Nakagawa kicked off the conversation by highlighting Microsoft’s partnership with sustainable aviation fuel startup Twelve, which recently opened its first commercial-scale SAF plant in Moses Lake, Washington. The tech giant has supported the project through a strategic investment from its Climate Innovation Fund, as well as an offtake agreement for the fuel that will help offset its emissions from employee travel.

Keep reading...Show less