• THE GRID
The Forecast That Can't Sit Still
I wrote about the BNEF revision on Thursday. The number — 194 gigawatts by 2035 — spoke for itself. Today I want to talk about the part nobody's discussing: even a perfect buildout won't close the gap.
BNEF ran the math on that. Even if the U.S. set a record rate of new grid hookups and held it for ten straight years, it still wouldn't be enough.
Record pace. Every year. A full decade. Still short.
| BNEF Dec '25 106 GW | BNEF Jul '26 194 GW | |
| Forecast Jump +83% | DC Share of U.S. Power, 2035 ~20% | |
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"Every coal plant, every gas plant, every solar farm in the United States — one unit of energy out of five generated by them is going to data centers."
I've tracked energy demand models for years. They usually move in small steps. A few percent here. A tweak there. This isn't a tweak. This is a full rewrite of the outlook.
I've never seen a major research house revise this fast. Or this far.
What does 194 gigawatts mean in real terms? That's the output of about 200 nuclear reactors.
It would push data centers from 5.9% of all U.S. electricity today to 20% by 2035. One in every five watts. For servers.
The climb is already steep. BNEF says data centers will hit 12% of U.S. power by 2030.
And BNEF isn't alone. EPRI has more than doubled its 2024 estimate. S&P raised its projection by more than a third between October and April. Every expert model keeps breaking against the same wall: AI demand grows faster than the models can track.
But the grid isn't growing at the same speed. BNEF ran the math on that too. Even if the U.S. set a record rate of new grid hookups and held it for ten straight years, it still wouldn't close the gap.
Record pace. Every year. A full decade. Still short.
That's not a blip. That's a structural mismatch. Demand is pulling away from supply. And the spread is widening, not shrinking.
I keep coming back to the same thought. The people paid to forecast this can't keep up. Their models break before the ink dries. What does that tell you about the world that has to build it?
The winners won't be the ones making forecasts. They'll be the ones pouring concrete, stringing wire, and shipping transformers.
When the analysts can't keep up with their own models, the builders own the next decade.
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• VOLTAGE
The Grid Bypass
A 1,950-acre campus in West Texas. No grid connection. No utility bill. Just rows of natural gas generators, running around the clock, to feed an AI data center.
That's the Circe Energy project. In June, Cummins signed on to supply the gas generators. The plan starts at 10 megawatts this year. It scales to 1.1 gigawatts by 2030. All behind the meter. All off the grid.
Circe isn't alone. Not even close.
According to RBC Capital Markets, Texas now has 38 gigawatts of behind-the-meter data center power in the works. That's more capacity than most countries use in total.
Why? ERCOT's queue holds 356 gigawatts of data center requests. The line stretches for years. So the biggest players are stepping around it entirely.
Chevron is a prime example. The oil giant is building a 2.67-gigawatt gas plant in the Permian Basin. It's Chevron's first power plant built for a data center. And the project could scale to 5 gigawatts.
This is a new pattern. Oil companies are becoming power companies. Data centers are becoming their own utilities. The public grid is too slow. So these firms are building private ones.
The fuel is right there. Cheap Permian Basin gas. Short pipe runs. No grid queue. No multi-year wait for a permit.
If you can't plug in, you build your own plug. That's the new rule in Texas.
• WIRED IN
Signals From the Wire
NextEra–Dominion merger clock starts ticking. The two utilities filed for regulatory approval on July 15, starting a 180-day review in Virginia. The $67 billion deal would create the world's largest regulated electric utility — about 10 million customer accounts across four states. NextEra is pledging $2.25 billion in bill credits for Dominion customers to smooth the path.
Blackstone buys into the old grid. Blackstone's Energy Transition fund agreed on July 6 to acquire Dresser Utility Solutions. Founded in 1880, the Houston firm makes metering tech and digital sensors for utilities. Grid upgrades aren't just about big iron. The smart gear on top of it is a growing market too.
BlackRock bets on rooftop solar. Global Infrastructure Partners, now part of BlackRock, agreed July 14 to buy a majority stake in Summit Ridge Energy. Summit Ridge builds community and commercial solar projects. Big asset managers keep stacking small-scale energy plays next to their utility-scale bets.
Eaton's Q2 earnings land next week. The power management giant posted record Q1 revenue of $7.45 billion, up 17% year over year, driven by data center demand. Q2 results drop July 31. The stock is near its 52-week high. If data center spend keeps rising at the pace BNEF just flagged, Eaton has more room to run.
The biggest deals, the smartest money, and the sharpest earnings all point the same direction: own the infrastructure the grid can't build fast enough.
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