A Landmark Analysis from Greenlink Analytics & Science for Georgia
The newly released Data Center Growth Impact on Southeast U.S., led by Greenlink Analytics and Science for Georgia, prepared for Southern Environmental Law Center, offers one of the most rigorous, transparent, and sector-leading assessments to date of how data center growth will shape energy demand in the Southeast.
By pairing Greenlink’s nationally recognized modeling expertise with Science for Georgia’s commitment to solid, evidence-driven policy, the study brings clarity to a landscape challenged by inconsistent data and inflated claims. It delivers a realistic view of future data center demand that the region has been missing.
The Southeast continues to emerge as one of the nation’s most important data center markets – and one of its most uncertain. There are plausible scenarios under which growth in the Southeast could exceed, lag behind, or remain in line with the national average; regional transparency remains low.
Thanks to the team’s comprehensive synthesis of global, national, and regional data, the study resolves conflicting narratives surrounding data center growth.
The report synthesizes forecasts from IEA, LBNL, Boston Consulting Group, S&P Global, McKinsey, Enverus, and others to produce an evidence-based baseline of data-center load growth. These forecasts show growth through 2030, followed by significant deceleration. This study establishes the first rigorously constructed probability distribution for Southeastern data center growth.
Key Takeaways From the Modeling
Industry Forecast Modeling Results
1. Industry forecasts show growth through 2030, dampening thereafter.
- Early-period annual growth (2024–2030) spans 8–22%.
- After 2030, all models show growth falling sharply, typically to 1–7%.
2. Data center load will increase, but by less than the utilities’ predictions
- Using today’s load of about 4 GW as a starting point, the model’s most common results fall between 7.5 and 9.5 GW by 2031, indicating likely growth of 3.5 to 5.5 GW by 2031.
- The 95% probability range of 2.2 to 8.7 GW of additional load illustrates the considerable variability in long-term projections.
3. Utilities’ projections appear to represent extreme outlier growth
Across nearly all simulations, utility estimates landed above what the model considers a reasonable upper bound. Excluding the technological advancement model, the likelihood of the utilities’ predicted estimate is only about 1 in 500. The research’s multiscenario modeling, one of the most comprehensive produced to date, highlights that credible expert forecasts do not support the extreme load growth often cited in utility planning.
Innovation Analysis Model: Technology Could Flatten the Curve
These estimates do not account for technological improvements; when those are considered, the modeling suggests a lower level of demand growth, with a most likely range of 1.4 to 3.6 GW of growth by 2031.
One of the most important insights from the report is the technology-adjusted forecast. By layering hardware and software advancements, from liquid cooling to compute-in-memory to emerging AI algorithm efficiencies, Greenlink and Science for Georgia show that data center energy demand in the Southeast could remain nearly flat over the next decade.
In fact, in these simulations, the utilities’ forecast exceeds the modeled range only 13 times in 100,000 simulations.
This finding is transformative for regional planning. It demonstrates that forward-looking, innovation-inclusive modeling is essential to avoid overbuilding costly fossil infrastructure.
Major Conclusions
The report is one of the first to quantitatively demonstrate what many have expected: data-center demand projections inherently contain uncertainty and systematic upward bias. We have a few major takeaways for energy policy:
1. Planning around extreme growth forecasts can lead to overstated resource needs
The study makes it clear that the highest growth projections, often used in recent utility filings, fall well outside what the modeling shows as realistic.
2. Technology is already reshaping demand.
Recent gains in cooling, hardware design, and algorithm efficiency are already lowering projected energy use, a trend likely to continue.
Encouraging investment in technological advancements will enable smart growth without straining our power and water supply.
3. Stronger, more transparent data reporting is crucial
Without a clearer picture of where load exists today and what’s coming next, infrastructure plans can easily overshoot, wasting billions of dollars.
Charting a Smarter Energy Future Together
This research moves Greenlink Analytics and Science for Georgia further along in their shared mission to bring sound evidence and scientific rigor into energy planning. By working together, the two organizations are giving the Southeast and the country a clearer path through a rapidly shifting digital and energy landscape.
Dec 16, 2025 - Press Release
New modeling from the report, “Impacts of Projected Data Center Growth and Emerging Uncertainties on Power Demand in the Southeast”, finds utilities in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina are planning for data-center-driven electricity demand growth that has a roughly 0.2% chance of actually occurring. These states are facing a massive proposed expansion of methane gas infrastructure and power plants to support data centers. The report raises serious questions about the assumptions used to justify that buildout.
Greenlink Analytics and Science for Georgia developed an independent data center load forecast for the Southeast, using credible national and global market data on data center growth, Monte Carlo simulations, and compared this with utilities’ projections. The analysis demonstrates that utilities are betting on the highly unlikely, top end of the range projections. This analysis, which utilized conservative assumptions with regards to any future technological efficiency improvements, shows likely data center load growth in the Southeast to be approximately 2.4-6.7 GW over the next 5-6 years, while utilities are planning for over 10 GW—a scenario that is above 99.7% of the 100,000 of our simulations. The report’s second set of simulations, which assumes further potential energy efficiency gains for data centers from new and emerging technologies, forecasts that the utilities’ aggregate growth projection is even less likely: a 1-in-8,000 chance.
“There is a lot that is still unclear when it comes to the future of data center energy demand, but the evidence for massive demand growth that would justify this much capacity expansion from utilities just isn’t there,” said Kavin Manickaraj, Chief Data Scientist, Greenlink Analytics. “Our simulations show that even without any computational advancements the industry expects, there is about a 1 in 500 chance that we would need to build 10 GW of energy capacity throughout the Southeast to account for data centers.”
“Over the course of researching this report, the utility estimates for load growth have only risen. Just last week, Georgia Power and the Georgia Public Service Commission staff agreed to a 10 GW expansion for Georgia alone. Yet, as our report shows, during the same time subject matter experts’ estimates have gone down,” said Amy Sharma, PhD, Executive Director, Science for Georgia. “This is a call to pump the brakes and take into account multiple inputs, before we burden the southeast with expensive stranded assets – assets that ratepayers will be accountable to pay for.”
“This report is a sanity check on the pressure coming from all directions that more gas is urgently needed to support data center growth. It’s important that we slow down and look at the evidence that not only is there less projected demand than these utilities want us to believe, but there’s also significant downsides to building all the utilities’ proposed gas power plants and pipelines that will end up as expensive stranded assets on the backs of Southern ratepayers,” said Megan Gibson, Senior Attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center. “If utilities are allowed to run wild overbuilding gas infrastructure for power demand that likely will not exist, Southern communities will end up paying the price with their pocketbooks and health.”
Utilities and pipeline companies across the Southeastern United States are planning significant, long-term expansions of natural gas infrastructure over the next 15 years, with projected data center growth cited as a primary driver. Given utilities’ track record of over forecasting, and this additional analysis, policymakers, regulators, and communities should treat aggressive projections around ‘data center’ demand, and resulting plans for an extreme gas buildout, with healthy skepticism and demand more transparent, realistic planning.
These findings echo another report commissioned by SELC earlier this year demonstrating the risk of duplicate proposals inflating load projections and a shortage in chips and showing that projected data center buildout is virtually impossible to achieve.
Link to Report: 2025-Greenlink-IMPACTS-OF-PROJECTED-DATA-CENTER-GROWTH-Report.pdf