Data Centers May Cause Electricity Grid Instability for Winter
Last November, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), the watchdog charged with keeping the nation’s power grid stable, issued a sobering warning. In its 2025-2026 Winter Reliability Assessment, NERC found that winter electricity demand had grown by 20 gigawatts in a single year, while new generating capacity grew by less than half that.
Under normal winter conditions supplies were adequate; the danger lay in a prolonged, wide-area cold snap. NERC flagged an elevated risk of shortfalls in New England, parts of the Southeast, Texas, and portions of the West. If such an emergency struck, grid operators would have to lean on imports from neighboring systems and emergency cutbacks by customers, with rotating blackouts as the last resort.
Data Centers Increasing Demand
Data centers are a central reason. NERC singled them out as a major driver of rising demand, noting that because they run around the clock, they stretch out peak demand periods. The International Energy Agency expects data centers to consume nearly half of all new electricity supply added in the United States. Meanwhile, the largest addition to the grid last winter was battery storage, which can falter in extended cold when solar generation is available for fewer hours. Washington’s stopgap was to keep aging plants running: For instance, the Department of Energy issued an emergency order keeping Michigan’s J.H. Campbell coal plant operating through February 2026. (It has since ordered it to operate through November 14.)
NERC’s assessment for the coming winter is expected soon. Nothing about the pace of the artificial-intelligence buildout suggests the gap has closed.
Consequences
Texans know what happens when the margin runs out. In February 2021, Winter Storm Uri knocked out power to more than four million customers, and many homes went without heat or drinkable water for days. The state’s official death toll reached 246; other organizations put the true figure near 700. The victims included an 11-year-old boy who died in his bed in his family’s unheated mobile home in Conroe, and a Houston girl and her mother who died of carbon monoxide poisoning after the family ran a car in the garage to stay warm.
That lesson applies again this winter. Officials who welcome every new data center owe the public a plain answer. When the next polar vortex arrives, who keeps the lights on, and who pays for it? Reliability, not ribbon cuttings, should come first.
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