Across North America, a growing wave of data centre development is putting new pressure on electricity systems. The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that data centres will account for nearly half of US electricity demand growth between now and 2030. These facilities are becoming critical infrastructure, supporting everything from cloud services to artificial intelligence.

But their growth comes as electricity demand is already increasing rapidly, thanks to industrial expansion, heat pumps, electric vehicles and other new technologies that are changing how homes, businesses and communities use power.

Governments and utilities are already grappling with these challenges: how much new infrastructure is needed, how to plan for it and who should pay?

In response, jurisdictions are exploring a straightforward idea: If you build a data centre, you should bring your own power.

It’s a sensible starting point. But power supply alone does not answer the equally important question of how these facilities use electricity once they are connected.

In addition to knowing how much electricity a facility will use, decision-makers must ask whether that electricity will be used efficiently and whether the grid can manage that power without adding unnecessary costs or........

© National Observer