BLACK & VEATCH as a mid-sized city, delivered with the reliability that utilities typically reserve for hospitals and emergency services. Now imagine dozens of such facilities planned across regions that haven’ t seen significant load growth in decades.
Traditional utility planning assumes gradual, predictable growth patterns. A new manufacturing plant might add 20-30MW over several years, giving utilities time to plan upgrades and secure funding. Data centres shatter this model by demanding hundreds of megawatts with deployment timelines measured in months rather than years. The mismatch between business requirements and infrastructure reality has created a bottleneck.
“ Now the wait for many data centres is potentially up to five to 10 years to deliver the energy that they need directly from the grid,” Phil says.
Five to 10 years might as well be forever in the AI race. Companies investing billions in machine learning capabilities today can’ t wait for utilities to build transmission lines that may face permitting challenges, community opposition and financing constraints.
These narrow timelines have forced a fundamental reconsideration of how data centres source power.
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