China’s state planner has called for more investment in equipment upgrades to help support the country’s energy transition. The energy upgrade plan calls for investment in renewable and power grid technologies, energy conservation, and coal power plant flexibility—areas that Beijing has signaled will be key to the transition from coal to lower-carbon power. The plan reiterates existing regulations on equipment upgrades, including one that requires wind farms older than 15 years, or with less than 1.5 megawatts (MW) of capacity, to be retrofitted.
Some of the world’s largest economies are experiencing unprecedented electricity demand growth thanks to technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), cryptocurrencies, and clean energy manufacturing. The ongoing AI boom, in particular, has been driving a surge in power demand, with the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) predicting that data centers will gobble up up to 9% of total electricity generated in the United States by the end of the decade, up from ~1.5% currently, as reported by Scientific American. For the first time in decades, demand for electricity in the U.S. is projected to grow by as much as 15% over the next decade, a trend likely to complicate Biden’s goal to decarbonize the power sector by 2035.
Back in June, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm revealed that President Joe Biden’s administration has been talking to major technology companies to invest in climate-friendly electricity generation to meet their surging demand.
“We’ve been talking with data companies. The large ones have commitments to net-zero and would like to see clean baseload power. If the tech companies are coming in and are going to pull clean power from the grid, they should bring the power with them. And so a lot of that conversation is happening right now among tech companies and utilities, tech companies and nuclear companies,” Granholm told Reuters in an interview.
By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com
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