In the current public debate concerning sustainable energy solutions, few topics dominate the agenda quite like artificial intelligence (AI), whether the focus is on unprecedented demand for electricity or the tools that could revolutionize the generation, management, and distribution of powerIn the current public debate concerning sustainable energy solutions, few topics dominate the agenda quite like artificial intelligence (AI), whether the focus is on unprecedented demand for electricity or the tools that could revolutionize the generation, management, and distribution of power. AI will be a critical piece of the clean energy economy, according to a new report by the US Department of Energy and its six national laboratories. Last year, President Joe Biden issued an executive order calling for the agency to produce a public report “describing the potential for AI to improve planning, permitting, investment, and operations for electric grid infrastructure and to enable the provision of clean, affordable, reliable, resilient, and secure electric power to all Americans.”
The rise of AI data centres, with their insatiable hunger for electricity, is asking an awful lot of the world’s utilities and grid operators. On the bright side, AI can also give a fair bit back, by helping transform ancient, overloaded and dumb electricity networks into something fit for the digital and decarbonised age. America’s Department of Energy reckons that AI and other improvements to the country’s existing grid could liberate as much as 100 GW in transmission and distribution capacity over the next 3-5 years without the need to build new lines. That is about 13% of current peak demand of around 740 GW.
IENE’s latest Monthly Analysis, which is available here, attempts to shed light on the emerging topic of AI in conjunction with the operation of electricity grids and how AI can transform them in the energy demanding future.
Data center energy use is spiking around the world. As AI workloads soar, the International Energy Agency says that demand could double in the next two years. Many utilities in the US are scrambling to procure more power to meet growing load from new manufacturing plants, electrification, and data centers – often by proposing new gas plants.
This trend is worrying environmentalists and clean power advocates, who say AI could make decarbonization harder on an already-constrained grid. But many experts see it as an opportunity to get creative about expanding grid capacity and designing more energy efficient data centers – and hence the benefits of AI in the power sector may far outweigh the increase in power demand.
