Commercial electricity demand surges in ten states, led by Virginia and Texas, driven by data center growth.

Commercial sector electricity demand in ten states has surged, with most of the growth concentrated in Virginia, Texas, Arizona, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Florida, Utah, Nevada and Oregon. The EIA report noted that commercial sector customers in these states grew by 10% or a combined 42 billion kWh in the four years since 2019. Virginia, the top U.S. state for data center location, increased commercial sector electricity consumption by nearly 15,000 GWh (or 15 million MWh), since 2019, with 94 new data centers built and connected there. Texas was second on the EIA commercial-sector growth list with an increase of close to 14,000 Wh from 2019-2023. South Carolina, Arizona and Oklahoma also showed significant commercial- sector electricity growth. The report also noted that U.K. commercial sector power consumption could rise to over 1.4 trillion kWh by 2025, which would be 130 billion kWh higher than during the pandemic’s economic nadir in 2020.