How AI is Creating Conditions for Increased Outages

In many areas, the electrical grid is already operating near its capacity or struggling with stability issues. The growing demands of AI are now adding even more pressure. World Economic Forum reports that the computational power required for sustaining AI’s rise is doubling roughly every 100 days. By 2028, AI could be using more power than the entire country of Iceland used in 2021. There is also a substantial lag between computing growth and grid growth. Data centers take one to two years to build, while adding new power to the grid requires over four years. This disparity between supply and demand is a recipe for increased chances of power outages.

GRID INSTABILITY

Even before the explosion of AI, the existing grid infrastructure was under stress. This makes an already tenuous situation even worse. In some instances, the reason for a power outage might just be age. The average transformer in the U.S is 38 years old. Much of the U.S. power grid is in dire need of updates and as such, is prone to failures, especially under current energy demands. Generally, our grid is 60+ years old and was not built to serve the number of households and businesses we have now. The demands of modern lives aren’t reflected in our power grid. Today, we use 14 times the energy we did when the grid was new, in 1950.4 Across the United States, there are more electrical appliances in each home than ever before. In addition, we’re adding a growing reliance on electric vehicles, and environmental initiatives to move more home systems away from gas to electric. It is projected that U.S. electricity use will continue to rise over the coming decades to reach 5,178 terawatt hours by 2050 - an increase of roughly 27 percent, relative to 2022. Our modern lives are placing an ever-higher demand on an outdated grid. As average temperatures continue to rise, more people are using more climate control in their homes. And while there’s an increasing emphasis on sourcing electricity from renewable sources that will help make the grid more resilient, that new infrastructure support will take years to catch up.