Power & Renewables

Powering the Digital Age | Data Centers and Energy

byCarson Kearl, Enverus Intelligence® Research (EIR) Contributor

Questions around the relationship of data centers to energy demand are very quickly etching themselves onto the minds of industry and technology participants alike. Recent analysis from Enverus Intelligence® Research (EIR) forecasting Lower 48 and regional data center demand highlight some of the complexities of finding ideal traits such as connectivity to fiber networks, reliability and less critically, affordability of power supply. We see a growth floor near the fastest pre-AI period of deployment, while the dominant constraint is access to reliable power capacity.

Industry participants looking to build these facilities are running into a wall of regulated utilities who simply cannot guarantee the scale and reliability of supply they require. Hyperscale users are forming partnerships and making investments in the geothermal and advanced nuclear industries. Amazon, Microsoft and Google with are all leaning into these technologies and their ability to serve carbon free baseload electricity that meets the reliability requirements of their facilities. In the meantime, existing underutilized gas-fired and nuclear power plants will be targets for deployment opportunities.

Join Enverus Intelligence® Research for the webinar, “Gas-Fired Generation | Power’s Burning Question,” and discover how natural gas will play a key role in powering the future, even as its role evolves amid the transition to renewable energy.

Highlights From Energy Transition Research

(You must be an Enverus Intelligence® Research subscriber to access links below.)

Data Center Demand | Load Impact Imminent – Dig into a Lower 48-level view on expected growth in data center capacity and associated power demand.

Fusion Insights | Data Center Load Growth: Marrying Load to the Interconnection Queue – This Prism Signal leverages EIR’s proprietary large-load project tracking dataset to identify the regions exposed to the most load growth as a result of data center expansion.

Tracking the ET Market | Improving Multiples in a Lower Cost of Capital Environment – The 4Q23 edition of the Energy Transition Research team’s equity tracking report provides coverage across various energy transition sectors as well as integrated traditional energy businesses.

did-you-know

About Enverus Intelligence®| Research
Enverus Intelligence® | Research, Inc. (EIR) is a subsidiary of Enverus that publishes energy-sector research focused on the oil, natural gas, power and renewable industries. EIR publishes reports including asset and company valuations, resource assessments, technical evaluations and macro-economic forecasts and helps make intelligent connections for energy industry participants, service companies and capital providers worldwide. Click here to learn more.

Picture of Carson Kearl, Enverus Intelligence® Research (EIR) Contributor

Carson Kearl, Enverus Intelligence® Research (EIR) Contributor

As an analyst on the Enverus Intelligence® Research (EIR) team, Carson is the lead on data centers and advanced energy technologies. He was previously an analyst on the macro team and has additional experience advising large industrial consumers on their energy consumption. His education in economics at the University of Alberta focused on industrial organization and power markets.

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