New report out today: Separating fact from fiction in data center electricity forecasts: A guide for regulators
I’m proud to share a report we created in collaboration with Gridlab, released today, Monday March 23, 2026, 9am PT. Below is a link to the final report.
Koomey, Jonathan, Zachary Schmidt, Priya Sreedharan, Nikhil Kumar, and Taylor McNair. 2026. Separating fact from fiction in data center electricity forecasts: A guide for regulators. Bay Area, California: A joint report by Koomey Analytics and Gridlab. March.
Key takeaways from this white paper include:
· All computing (including compute data centers, both AI and conventional) was responsible for about 6% of all electricity consumption globally in 2024, and while compute data centers appear to be growing, they’re starting from a relatively small base (about 1.5% of the world’s electricity in 2024). For the US, which has a higher concentration of data centers (and particularly AI facilities) total data center electricity use was about 4.4% in 2023, up from about 2% in 2020.
· For forecasts of data center electricity use, there is uncertainty on both the potential growth in service demand (the amount of compute we’ll use) and the increase in efficiency of delivering that service demand. There are also open questions about potentially inflated or duplicate interconnection requests submitted by data center developers, which may lead to over-estimation of future electricity loads.
· Future projections of data center electricity demand are highly uncertain, so it’s critical for regulators and utilities to examine carefully the assumptions driving forecasts of explosive demand growth in the regions where these projections are emerging.
· Analysts, researchers, and policy makers should avoid the common tendency to overestimate the energy and environmental effects of information technology, which has been well documented for decades. They should also avoid citing or using “amazing factoids” until they’ve analyzed such claims independently.
This report also includes a list of follow-on resources and references for those who want to investigate further.
A key figure: Approximate percentages of total global electricity use represented by different types of computing and network equipment in 2020 and 2024
Related: Koomey, Jonathan, Zachary Schmidt, and Tanya Das. 2025. Electricity Demand Growth and Data Centers: A Guide for the Perplexed. Washington, DC: Bipartisan Policy Center. February. Click here for blog post.
