EIA: US power consumption will reach new highs by 2025 and 26.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration announced in its Short Term Energy Outlook on Thursday that the U.S. will reach new records in power consumption in 2025 and in 2026.

EIA projects that power demand will increase to 4,201 billion Kilowatt Hours (kWh) by 2025, and 4,244 trillion kWh by 2026. This is a significant rise from the record 4,097 kWh of 2024.

These increases are due to the growth of data centers dedicated for artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency and home and business use.

EIA predicts that by 2025, residential customers will consume 1,527 billion kWh of electricity. Commercial customers will consume 1,467 trillion kWh and industrial customers 1,059 trillion kWh.

These forecasts are compared to the all-time records of 1,509 billions kWh for residential customers in 2022, and 1,434 trillions kWh for commercial customers in 2024.

EIA predicted that natural gas would lose its share in power generation from 42% to 40% by 2025. Coal's percentage will remain at 16%, same as in 2024, and then drop to 15% by 2026 as renewables increase.

According to the outlook, the percentage of renewable energy will increase from 23% to 25% by 2025, and to 27% by 2026. Nuclear power will remain at 19% for 2025 and 2026.

EIA predicted that gas sales for 2025 will rise to 13,2 billion cubic foot per day (bcfd), 9.8 bcfd, 23.4 bcfd and 35.7 bcfd respectively for residential and commercial consumers.

This compares to all-time records of 14.3 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) in 1996 for residential customers, 9.6 billion cubic feet per day in 2019 for commercial clients, 23.8 billion cubic feet per day in 1973 for industrial consumers and 36.9 Bcfd by 2024 for electricity generation. (Reporting and editing by Susan Fenton; Scott DiSavino)

(source: Reuters)