Regulating Data Centers for Emissions and Affordability

Data centers are by far the leading driver of electric load growth in the United States. National estimates suggest data center load could increase sixfold by 2035, reaching 194 GW of demand. Without any controls, that could lead to a tripling of greenhouse gas emissions from data centers — the equivalent to adding more than 81 million gas powered cars to the road. Data centers have also created concerns over how they could raise costs for other customers, through requiring investment in new generation and transmission infrastructure that may be subsidized by other customers.

States are key to creating and enforcing smart regulation to manage data centers, and many have proposed and instituted new frameworks that are designed to tackle the potential of data centers accelerating GHG emissions and passing costs onto others. World Resources Institute will be hosting a webinar featuring work from state policymakers across the country to regulate emissions related to powering data centers. The virtual session will include a brief, introductory review of WRI and CXC’s recent toolkit on regulating emissions from data centers and then proceeding into a panel discussion with policymakers and advocates working directly on these issues. Finally, there will be a moderated Q&A.