Texas Data Center Development Halted, US Power Sales Growth Forecast Downgraded

The growth rate of electricity consumption in the United States is expected to slow down. With Texas putting the brakes on new data center developments, the forecast for next year's growth rate of US power sales has been lowered from 2.9% to 1.8%. Total electricity sales in the US are expected to increase by 1.8% next year compared to this year, which is a downward adjustment of 1.1 percentage points from the forecast made in August. Texas has effectively halted the development of data center projects by ordering a review of the power grid connection applications submitted last month. The scale of the power grid connection applications under review by the Texas grid operator is approximately 474 gigawatts (GW), which is more than five times the historical peak power demand in Texas. Data centers and manufacturing are leading the increase in electricity consumption in the US, with the greatest growth expected in the power sales of the southwestern region. This region is anticipated to account for about 40% of the total increase in US power sales next year. While the halt in data center development in Texas is impacting power demand forecasts, the structural trend of increasing power demand is expected to continue.