China's national planners are calling for greater investment in capital upgrading to support the country's energy transition. The Energy Upgrade Plan calls for investment in renewable energy, power grid technologies, energy efficiency and flexibility for coal-fired power plants, areas that Beijing has signaled are key to the transition from coal to low-carbon electricity. The plan reiterates existing regulations on capital upgrading, such as requiring the retrofitting of wind farms that are more than 15 years old or have a capacity of less than 1.5 megawatts (MW).
Some of the world's largest economies are experiencing an unprecedented increase in electricity demand, thanks to technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), cryptocurrency, and clean energy manufacturing. The ongoing AI boom in particular is causing a surge in electricity demand, with the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) predicting that data centers will consume up to 9% of total electricity generation in the United States in 10 years, up from about 1.5% today, as reported by Scientific American. For the first time in decades, electricity demand in the United States is expected to increase by up to 15% over the next decade, a trend that could complicate Biden's goal of decarbonizing the power sector by 2035.
In June, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said President Joe Biden's administration was in talks with big tech companies to invest in climate-friendly power generation to meet surging demand.
“We're having discussions with data companies. The big companies are committed to net zero and they want clean baseload electricity. If tech companies are going to come in and pull clean electricity off the grid, they should bring their electricity with them. So those conversations are happening a lot right now between tech companies and utilities, tech companies and nuclear companies,” Granholm told Reuters in an interview.
Article by Alex Kimani of Oilprice.com
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