Data centers are signing contracts for power that utilities haven't planned to supply. Latitude Intelligence finds that across vertically integrated utilities, signed data center load leaves about a quarter of required electricity with no planned generation. Most of the planned supply is gas, and carbon-free projects cover only about 30% if all proposed projects get built, dropping to 15% if only approved ones count. The gap is roughly 120 TWh, and filling it with renewables would require 40 to 90 GW of new wind and solar, depending on which projects are counted. Utilities haven't even started procuring much of that capacity. With new state governments and pending regulatory decisions, the next few years will determine whether data centers run on gas or clean power.
