America’s Biggest Power Grid Operator Has an AI Problem—Too Many Data Centers

America’s artificial intelligence (AI) boom is pushing the nation’s largest power-grid operator to the brink of a supply crisis. Sixty-seven million people in a 13-state region stretching from New Jersey to Kentucky get their power from a market operated by nonprofit PJM. So, too, do the many AI data centers springing up in Northern Virginia’s “Data Center Alley,” which have a bottomless appetite for electricity. Rates are going up for consumers. Older power plants are going out of service faster than new ones can be built. And the grid’s capacity is in danger of maxing out during periods of high demand, which could force PJM to call for rolling blackouts during heat waves or deep freezes to avoid damaging grid infrastructure. Mark Christie, former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said that a few years ago, he considered the PJM blackout threat to be on the horizon. “Now I’m saying that the reliability risk is across the street,” he said. PJM expects power demand to grow by 4.8 percent a year, on average, for the next decade—an astonishing pace for a system that hasn’t had substantial demand growth in years.