Tyler Norris, a Ph.D. student at the Nicholas School of the Environment, joined the Energy Capital Podcast to discuss a recent Nicholas Institute study on large flexible loads, the data center boom and how demand-side innovation can ease grid strain and enable load growth.

John Quigley, a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, tells Floodlight that plenty can be done to update the existing grid’s capacity to meet the electricity needs of data centers without immediately installing new transmission lines. He pointed to a recent Nicholas Institute study that finds load flexibility could be a “key solution to the United States' soaring electrical demand.”

Doctoral candidate Tyler Norris returned as a guest on the Catalyst podcast, discussing how electric load flexibility can help power the AI-focused data center boom. 

U.S. power demand has soared in recent years with growing artificial intelligence, construction and electrification needs. The Bloomberg Energy Daily cites new Nicholas Institute research saying the United States can meet this rising consumption and quickly add huge loads to its grids without building new power plants by deploying grid flexibility—strategically cutting consumption by the equivalent of about one day a year’s usage.

Jigar Shah, former director of the DOE Loan Programs Office and longtime clean energy entrepreneur, cited a recent Nicholas Institute analysis on the Open Circuit podcast. Discussing residential solar uptake and its effects on the electrical grid, Shah said: "When you look at Tyler Norris’ paper from Duke University, it says that if you basically solve for 50 hours a year, then you could get way more out of the grid that we’ve already paid for."

During the launch of The Duke Campaign, a session featuring Nicholas Institute experts Brian Murray and Jackson Ewing and Duke students highlighted how the university and stakeholders are collaborating on climate finance and policy to achieve global energy goals and create a more equitable and sustainable world. “This is an interdisciplinary set of challenges, and we attempt to match them to Duke’s interdisciplinary resources,” Ewing said.

During a U.S. House Subcommittee on Energy hearing, Duke University expert Tyler Norris discussed a recent study he coauthored on how to meet rising energy demand in the United States. "Our findings suggest that with modest flexibility from new large electricity customers, the existing U.S. power system can accommodate substantial load additions without compromising reliability," Norris testified, according to POWER magazine.

A new paper from Harvard University argues that the cost of upgrading power systems to provide electricity to data centers will fall to normal people and businesses under traditional utility models, Heatmap News reports. In proposing alternative approaches, the Harvard researchers cite a recent study from Duke University scholars that shows utilities could avoid billions of dollars of system upgrades if data centers commit to powering down for a small portion of every year.

As utilities face a surge in electricity demand, a study by Duke University scholars offers an alternative to costly new generation: Let data centers come online under an agreement that they won’t be able to draw power from the grid when energy use is at its highest levels. “If you’re not putting more stress on some of the existing peaks, you may be able to defer that capacity addition and come online more quickly,” lead author Tyler Norris told The News & Observer.

On March 5, testifying before the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy, Tyler Norris cited a recent Nicholas Institute study on how load flexibility could help the existing U.S. power grid meet elevated demand.