EIA: US power consumption will reach new highs by 2025 and 26.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said Tuesday that the U.S. will reach record levels of power consumption in 2025 and in 2026.
EIA projects that power demand will increase to 4,205 billion Kilowatt Hours (kWh) by 2025, and 4,252 in 2026. This is a significant rise from the record 4,097 in 2024.
These increases are due to the growth of data centers for artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency and home and business use of electricity.
EIA estimates that by 2025, residential customers will consume 1,525 billion kWh of electricity. Commercial customers will consume 1,469 billion and industrial customers 1,065 billion.
These forecasts are compared to the all-time records of 1,509 billions kWh for residential customers in 2022, and 1,434 trillions kWh for commercial customers in 2024.
EIA predicted that natural gas would lose its share in power generation from 42% to 40% by 2025. Coal's percentage will remain at 16%, same as in 2024, and then decline to 15% by 2026 as renewables increase.
According to the outlook, the percentage of renewable energy will increase from 23% to 25% by 2025, and to 27% by 2026. Nuclear power will remain at 19% for 2025 and in 2026.
EIA predicted that gas sales for residential customers would increase to 13,1 billion cubic feet (bcfd), 9.7 bcfd, for commercial customers, and 23.5 bcfd, for industrial customers. However, the EIA forecasted that power generation would fall to 35,9 bcfd.
This compares to all-time records of 14.3 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) in 1996 for residential customers, 9.6 billion cubic feet per day in 2019 for commercial clients, 23.8 Bcfd for industrial customers in 1973 and 36.9 Bcfd for power generation in 2024. (Reporting and editing by Chris Reese; Scott DiSavino)
(source: Reuters)
