The Future of Electricity: AI, Renewables, and Your Grid

Most companies are planning for 2030 like the grid will look the same as it did in 2010. It won’t.

In the next decade, global electricity demand is projected to jump about 40%, AI data centers are on track to rival heavy industry in some countries, and solar and wind have already overtaken coal as the largest source of power in the first half of 2025. For anyone working in green technology, energy strategy, or digital infrastructure, this isn’t background noise. It’s the playing field.

This post is part of our Green Technology series, where we look at how AI, clean energy, and smart infrastructure actually change business decisions on the ground. Here’s the thing about the future of electricity: it’s not just about more power, it’s about where demand explodes, how we supply it, and who adapts fast enough.

Below are three forces reshaping electricity systems worldwide—and what they mean if you’re building or investing in sustainable technology today.

1. We’ve Entered the Age of Electricity

Electricity is becoming the default way we power growth. That matters because electricity is the energy carrier that’s easiest to decarbonize—and the one under the most pressure.

Global energy demand is rising with population and economic growth, but electricity demand alone is expected to grow by around 40% in the next 10 years. That’s a massive shift.

What’s driving the surge?

Three big drivers stand out:

1. Rising incomes and urbanization
   As more people move into cities and join the middle class, they buy appliances, electronics, and better housing. That translates into:

   • More air conditioners
   • More refrigeration
   • More home electronics and small devices

2. Exploding need for cooling
   Air-conditioning is quietly becoming one of the most important loads on the grid. By 2035, income-driven AC growth is expected to add roughly 330 gigawatts (GW) to global peak demand. Warming temperatures add another 170 GW. Combined, that’s more than a 10% increase over 2024 peak levels just from staying cool.

3. Electrification of transport and industry
   Electric vehicles (EVs), heat pumps, electric boilers, and industrial electrification are shifting energy use from fossil fuels to the grid. EVs alone will add more demand to the grid than data centers globally over the coming decade.

The reality? We’re rewiring the global economy around electricity, and the grid is becoming the backbone of climate strategy.

Why this is a green technology opportunity

For green-tech companies and energy-conscious businesses, fast-growing electric demand means:

• Huge markets for efficiency: Smart controls, building automation, high-efficiency HVAC, and demand response tools that shave peak loads are going to be essential in hot, rapidly growing regions.
• Stronger business cases for decentralization: Rooftop solar, community solar, local storage, and microgrids become more valuable where demand is rising and grids are stressed.
• Policy tailwinds: Governments under pressure to keep grids reliable while cutting emissions are more willing to support clean energy, storage, and “virtual power plant” solutions.

If you’re planning long-lived assets—real estate, campuses, manufacturing—assuming flat electricity demand is a strategic mistake. Assume the opposite.

2. AI Is Reshaping Electricity Locally, Not Just Globally

AI and data centers are getting a lot of blame for power consumption. Some of it is justified—but the story is more nuanced than “AI will eat the grid.”

Globally, data centers still make up under 10% of projected growth in electricity demand between now and 2035. Sectors like industry, buildings, and EVs are still bigger drivers.

But here’s the twist: AI is a local problem before it’s a global one.

Where AI hits hardest

In some countries, especially the US, AI and cloud infrastructure are becoming the main source of new demand:

• In the US, data centers are expected to account for about half of total electricity demand growth between now and 2030.
• Data centers tend to cluster in specific regions—near fiber backbones, cheap land, and favorable regulation.
• About half of planned data center capacity in the pipeline is near large cities, which are already grappling with aging infrastructure and rising demand from buildings and transport.

That concentration creates local grid stress: substations overloaded, transmission upgrades delayed, and businesses stuck waiting years for new connections.

How AI can also help the grid

Here’s where the story shifts from problem to opportunity. The same AI that drives data center demand can also:

• Optimize renewable integration: AI models predict solar and wind output more accurately, allowing grid operators to run systems closer to their limits without sacrificing reliability.
• Enable smart demand response: AI-powered platforms can coordinate thousands or millions of devices—EV chargers, heat pumps, industrial loads—to reduce consumption at peak times.
• Improve asset performance: Predictive maintenance for wind turbines, solar farms, and grid equipment extends asset life and improves capacity factors.

In other words, AI both consumes and coordinates electricity. The winners in green technology will be the ones who treat AI as both a load and a control layer.

What this means for your strategy

If you build or operate energy-intensive digital infrastructure, or sell into that ecosystem, a few moves make sense:

• Site selection is an energy decision now
  Don’t pick locations just for tax breaks and fiber. Evaluate:
  • Local grid capacity and congestion
  • Access to clean power (on- or off-site renewables)
  • Policy stability for PPAs and interconnection

• Pair compute with clean power and storage
  Onsite solar, storage, and even behind-the-meter microgrids can:

  • Reduce exposure to grid constraints
  • Improve sustainability metrics for customers and investors
  • Offer flexibility services back to the grid

• Use AI to manage AI’s footprint
  Smart scheduling, dynamic workload routing between regions, and flexible compute windows (for non-real-time tasks) can shift load to cleaner or cheaper hours.

The bottom line: AI is changing the geography of electricity stress. If you’re not factoring that into your growth plans, you’re flying blind.

3. Coal’s Peak and the Rise of Renewables and Nuclear

As electricity demand rises, the climate impact comes down to a simple question: what’s generating those extra kilowatt-hours?

For now, fossil fuels still dominate global power generation. But the mix is changing fast.

Renewables are overtaking coal

In the first half of 2025, solar and wind together became the leading source of electricity globally, surpassing coal for the first time. That’s a milestone worth paying attention to.

If current trends continue:

• Global coal use in power could peak and begin to fall by the end of this decade.
• Solar remains the star: about 80% of projected electricity demand growth over the next decade is in regions with strong solar resources.
• Wind, hydro, and storage are playing critical supporting roles.

This is exactly why electricity is central to any climate strategy: it’s the sector where clean technologies are already cost-competitive and scaling.

Nuclear’s quiet comeback

After roughly 20 years of stagnation, the global nuclear fleet could grow by about a third over the next decade. That doesn’t solve everything, but it matters.

Nuclear offers:

• Firm, low-carbon power that can complement variable renewables
• Long-lived assets that support industrial decarbonization
• A hedge against volatile gas and coal prices

Of course, nuclear has real challenges: cost overruns, long development timelines, waste management, and public perception. But for grids trying to move away from coal and gas while keeping reliability, nuclear is back in the serious-options column.

The uncomfortable truth: we’re still too slow

Here’s where I’ll be blunt. Despite all the progress:

• Global greenhouse gas emissions are still hitting record highs.
• New clean capacity isn’t yet retiring fossil plants at the speed required to keep warming in safer ranges.

There is momentum—solar, wind, efficiency, AI optimization, storage—but the pace of system change still lags behind climate reality.

For businesses, that’s not just an ethical issue. It’s a risk issue.

• Carbon pricing, pollution regulations, and disclosure rules are tightening.
• Customers and investors care about real, measurable decarbonization, not just offsets.
• Grid instability in high-demand regions can threaten operations.

Companies that treat electricity strategy as a core part of their climate and resilience planning will have a serious edge.

How Businesses Can Act on the Future of Electricity

So what do you actually do with all this?

Here’s a practical way to respond to the three big trends—booming electric demand, localized AI impacts, and the coal-to-clean transition.

1. Make electricity a C‑suite topic

Electricity isn’t just a facilities line item anymore. It’s a strategic variable.

• Integrate energy forecasts into long-term planning, not just short-term budgeting.
• Treat your electricity mix as part of your brand and risk profile.
• Tie executive incentives to real reductions in grid strain and carbon intensity, not just energy spend.

2. Build a “green load” strategy

A green load is demand that’s flexible, efficient, and increasingly powered by clean electricity. To get there:

• Electrify where it makes sense: heat pumps, EV fleets, process heat where feasible.
• Cut peak demand: use smart controls, thermal storage, and time-of-use shifting to flatten your load profile.
• Source cleaner power: mix onsite solar, storage, and long-term clean power contracts to reduce reliance on fossil-heavy grids.

As I’ve seen repeatedly, the companies that start with load flexibility unlock far more value from renewables later.

3. Use AI and data as climate tools, not just cost tools

Yes, AI can cut costs. But the real advantage comes when you treat it as an emissions and resilience tool:

• Use AI to optimize building operations, detect waste, and automate responses to grid signals.
• Turn your portfolio of assets—EVs, batteries, HVAC, industrial loads—into a virtual power plant that can support the grid and unlock new revenue streams.
• Apply advanced analytics to prioritize decarbonization projects where they cut the most emissions per dollar.

This is where the broader Green Technology story comes together: AI, smart devices, and clean power are most powerful when treated as one integrated system, not separate initiatives.

Where This All Leads

The future of electricity isn’t abstract anymore. It’s arriving in construction delays for new data centers, in heatwave-driven blackouts, in corporate climate reports, and in the surge of solar on rooftops and deserts.

Electricity demand will grow. AI will reshape where that demand lands. Renewables and nuclear will keep eating into coal and gas, but not fast enough unless businesses and policymakers push harder.

If you’re building anything that will still be around in 2035—a plant, a platform, a campus, a product roadmap—treat your electricity strategy as a core design choice, not an afterthought.

And if you want support designing that strategy—whether it’s AI-enabled energy management, renewable integration, or planning for data center growth—this is exactly the kind of work our Green Technology focus is built for.

The grid of 2035 is being shaped now. The real question is simple: will your organization be reacting to it, or helping define it?