Hearings to examine challenges to meeting increased electricity demand.

Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

2025-07-23

Source: Congress.gov

Summary

This hearing examines the unprecedented surge in U.S. electricity demand due to artificial intelligence, data centers, electric vehicles, and industrial electrification. Witnesses including Peter Huntsman of Huntsman Corporation, Jeff Tench of Vantage Data Centers, and Rob Gramlich of Grid Strategies emphasize that current power infrastructure is ill-prepared for this growth. They highlight key challenges such as lengthy permitting, interconnection delays, and the incompatibility of intermittent wind and solar with reliable baseload power. The panel underscores the need for expanded transmission capacity, accelerated deployment of firm, dispatchable generation like natural gas and nuclear, and policy reforms to improve grid reliability and affordability. Testimony reveals a consensus that without urgent action, the U.S. risks widespread blackouts, rising energy costs, and a loss of competitiveness in the global AI race.

Participants

Transcript

The hearing will come to order. Good morning and welcome to all of you. Today's hearing focuses on the challenges that America faces in meeting the increased demand for electricity, something that's gotten a lot of attention with good reason. Demand has been trending upward in recent years, and some expect it could grow by 25 percent just in the next five years alone. Data centers Supporting artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing, and the planned retirement of current production sources are just a few of the causes creating this increased demand. And as more people are drawn toward electric cars, that could put additional demand as well in play. America needs to put more electrons on the grid. We'll be hearing from three witnesses to better understand these issues today, and we're very fortunate to have them. First, Peter Huntsman, the Chairman and CEO of Huntsman Corporation. Jeff Tench, the Executive Vice President of Vantage Data Centers. Welcome. And finally, Rob Gramlich, the President of Grid Strategies. So thanks to all of you for being here. Now, let's begin with a simple fact. America's electricity demand is surging. It's not creeping up. It's surging. For decades, Power demand in this country remained relatively flat. Utilities planned for it. Markets priced for it. Regulators counted on it. But that era is over. We're now entering a new era of electrification. Data centers, AI computing, manufacturing, returning home, electric vehicles, all of it. Even conservative estimates suggest that we could see 2% to 3% annual growth compounded over the next decade. Now, that number, 2% to 3% annually compounded, that might not sound like much, but it's like a two-way highway that was built decades ago that's now expected to carry rush hour traffic to and from a major city every day of the year.

More cars, bigger trucks, constant congestion.

Martin Heinrich

And if the road hasn't changed, but everything around it has changed, that's going to be an issue. Now, that's a fairly decent analogy, something to help understand our power grid. And the challenge is now facing it. Now, here's the real problem. We have spent much of the last 20 years shutting down the generation that can actually meet that demand. Coal plants, retired. Nuclear, blocked. Natural gas, tied up in endless litigation. And we replaced a lot of that capacity with wind, solar, and batteries, resources that by design don't work all the time, work roughly a third of the time. One third of the time, that's not enough, not enough to support the dispatchable baseload power that we got from the other sources I mentioned. These resources being non-dispatchable means that they cannot be dispatched at the exact moment that they're needed with predictability and the reliability that is required. They do not provide baseload power, and they do not build themselves. They require massive transmission overhauls, grid upgrades, and most importantly, in many circumstances, subsidies. So this isn't a free market. In many ways, it's a rigged one. The federal government has been investing heavily in certain green energy technologies for decades, handing out tax credits like candy. So naturally, developers follow these credits.

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