Energy Demand Will Require 40% Grid Decarbonization by 2050 Just to Break-Even
All images courtesy of author.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) recently made headlines when it determined that a ChatGPT request consumes approximately 10 times more energy than a Google search.
How might that scale? According to Alex de Vries, the founder of the research group Digiconomist, adding AI-generated results to all Google searches could easily require as much electricity as the country of Ireland.
The ChatGPT stat is just the tip of the (melting) iceberg.
The AI Energy Boom Has Already Begun
The energy demand for AI is doubling every 100 days. Most of the demand comes from data centers, where AI is poised to drive a 160 percent increase in energy demand by 2030—enough electricity to power 40 million homes.
To put data center energy consumption into perspective, a single hyperscale data center typically uses between 100,000 to 200,000 MWh of electricity per year, depending on its size and operations. That’s more than enough energy to power the homes for a population the size of Cincinnati, Ohio.
The tech industry's demand of energy appears to insatiable.
What will this demand mean for an aging electrical grid that only earned a grade of "C-" in the latest ASCE Infrastructure Report Card?
Moreover, what will the increase in U.S. energy demand mean for total carbon emissions?
If we take the midcase scenario using the 2023 Cambium data sets from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and aggregated the information from all Generation and Emission Assessment (GEA) regions, a concerning forecast unfolds.
U.S. Electricity Generation is Projected to Increase 68.6 Percent by 2050
Due to a number of factors, including the projected rise in electrified buildings, an emerging electric vehicles market, an increase in per capita consumer electricity usage, and the ascending demand from the tech sector, the projections indicate that that U.S. electricity generation will increase 68.6 percent by 2050. Such a staggering increase in generation corresponds with a massive rise in demand and a commensurate expansion in grid capacity that must be accommodated within 25 years. For an electrical infrastructure often generating at capacity across many regions, this will be a major logistic and economic challenge.
Emissions Rate Drops by 67.3 Percent by 2050
However, the 2023 Cambium data sets also project that the overall greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions rate in the U.S. will decrease by 67.3 percent by 2050. Not exactly total decarbonization; but still a major reduction.
Continued advancements in decarbonizing of the U.S. electrical infrastructure through investments in renewable energy resources and technologies are forecasted to be more successful in some regions of the country compared to others; but the overall decrease is promising. (Side note: AI tech companies with ambitious decarbonization goals will likely be inclined to plant their data centers in regions where the GHG emissions rate reductions are making the most inroads.)
Overall Emissions Drop by Only 44.9 Percent
Now, let us put it together. On one hand, we have a major increase in U.S. electricity demand by 2050; on the other hand, we have an optimistic forecast in terms of percent reduction in GHG emissions by the grid over the same time period.
In terms absolute GHG emissions, current projections indicate that U.S. electricity consumption will result in the equivalent of 2,201,209 million kilograms of CO2 (million kg CO2e) in 2025 and 1,212,252 million kgCO2e in 2050. (Sorry about the units. It is challenging to keep these huge figures within a frame of reference. Our building-scale conversations typically reference kilograms of CO2e.)
Figure 1: U.S. electricity generation and carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emission projections from 2025-20250 using 2023 Cambium data sets. Figure by Daniel Overbey. |
Percent Reduction in Emissions Tells an Incomplete Story. Given the Projected Increase in Generation, What Will be the Overall Total Emissions?
The take-away here is that due to our increasing energy needs, the U.S. is (and will be) losing ground on absolute emissions reductions as we decarbonize the electrical grid. We must decarbonize the U.S. electric grid by more than 40 percent by 2050 just to break-even compared to total projected 2025 emissions.
Even if the U.S. succeeds mightily in decarbonizing the electrical grid, we must continue to strive to reduce overall electricity demand - especially in regions where the emissions rate from electricity generation remains relatively higher.
These figures underscores the importance of establishing (and regularly updating) a minimum standard for building energy efficiency in every U.S. jurisdiction.
The data also underscore the the importance for our model codes, standards, and rating systems to maintain trajectories for long-range performance goals. The latest U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) determinations have shifted the trajectories of both the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) and ANSI/ASHRAE/IES Standard 90.1 to achieve net-zero site energy use intensity (EUI) as a minimum requirement to between 2040 and 2045.
Even with a low-carbon grid, we will continue to need low-energy buildings.
Figure 2: National average percent reduction in predicted energy use intensity (pEUI) set by ANSI/ASHRAE/IES Standard 90.1 and the IECC relative to the 2003 CBECS (which uses building data recorded in 2000). The AIA 2030 Commitment target of achieving a 100% reduction in pEUI by 2030 is indicated. Figure by Daniel Overbey.