The Grid Nobody Planned For: Public Power, Hyperscalers and the Race to Rewire America for the AI Age

March 10, 2026
Podcast
LPPC CEO
Load Growth
Generation
Infrastructure

U.S. electricity demand has shifted quickly, driven by AI, data centers, electrification, and industrial reshoring. The industry is now trying to build generation, transmission, workforce capacity, and regulatory processes for a very different world than the one it planned for.

For LPPC members, the scale is significant: data center load in their territories is projected to grow from 4 GW to 18 GW in just five years, while they are planning roughly 60 GW of new generation over the next decade.

I joined Wood Mackenzie’s Interchange Recharged podcast with Bridget van Dorsten to discuss what that means for public power.

We covered:

  • why public power’s local governance and not-for-profit model are attracting an outsized share of new large loads
    ‍
  • how new large loads are reshaping interconnection by requiring real long-term financial commitments from hyperscaler customers
    ‍
  • why private-use rules, resource adequacy, and dispatchable capacity are becoming central policy questions
    ‍
  • how utilities are balancing what can be built today—wind, solar, and gas—with the need to advance clean firm technologies over time
    ‍

Listen here: https://www.woodmac.com/podcasts/interchange-recharged/grid-nobody-planned-for/

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