Before data centers come online, they need to have proactive plans to avoid drawing too much energy, said Duke University expert Tim Profeta, who co-authored a February analysis on how load flexibility could help manage rising U.S. energy demand. Regulators and utilities could require data centers to create those plans in exchange for jumping long queues to connect to the grid. “The biggest incentive is speed to interconnect to the grid,” Profeta told The Guardian.

Duke University Ph.D. student Tyler Norris presented to the North Carolina Utilities Commission on the findings of an influential Duke report analyzing how load flexibility could help meet rising electricity demand in the United States. The presentation came during a technical conference hosted by the commission to gather information and recommendations on "how to fairly and efficiently integrate large electric load additions."

Duke Energy plans to burn coal for two to four years longer than previously estimated, citing the state’s growing energy demand—driven by data centers and large manufacturers—among other factors, reports Inside Climate News. A February analysis by Duke University researchers posits that targeted, timed reductions in power demand could ease the strain on the grid without massive power-plant buildouts.

How can new data centers for artificial intelligence be sustainably and responsibly powered on the current U.S. electrical grid? A Duke University panel discussion, held at The Nest Main Stage during Climate Week NYC 2025, delivered insights into how to manage electrical loads flexibly and power the AI future sustainably.

At Climate Week New York City 2025, two themes resonated throughout Duke University’s presence: innovation and connections. Duke Today recapped some of the nearly dozen events across the week that Duke experts—including several from the Nicholas Institute—participated in. The events connected climate to finance, health, oceans, technology and more.

After a whirlwind of panels, side conversations, and informal discussions, Nicholas Institute Director Brian Murray shared the themes and insights that stuck with him from Climate Week NYC 2025. "If there was one unifying thread, it was this: the global energy transition is real, accelerating, and yet deeply uneven," Murray wrote.

During a symposium at Middlebury College, Nicholas Institute executive in residence Tim Profeta warned that U.S. data centers could double their share of national power consumption from 4% to 8% by 2030. Yet Profeta also suggested that AI’s high demand and hyperscaling might accelerate clean power adoption as tech giants promise to invest billions in geothermal, nuclear and storage technologies, reports The Middlebury Campus.

Two law professors are proposing a system called "demand side connect-and-manage" to help electricity markets cope with data center energy demands. The idea is "one of the most important contributions yet toward the re-examination of basic assumptions of U.S. electricity law that’s urgently needed as hyperscale load growth pushes our existing regulatory system beyond its limits," Duke University Ph.D. student Tyler Norris, who co-authored concept-defining work on data center flexibility, told Heatmap News.

A new proposal calls for moving away from requiring the grid to have enough power plant capacity to accommodate all users at all times, and instead treat data centers and other superusers as a separate customer class with special rules and added flexibility, reports Inside Climate News. Even a bit of flexibility could have substantial ramifications for reducing the need to build new power plants, as demonstrated by a February analysis by Duke University researchers.

A new report by Duke University researchers surveys the sustainability challenges that hyperscale data centers present, examines potential solutions and outlines pragmatic recommendations for companies, utilities, regulators and policymakers. The report is a collaboration of the Deep Tech Initiative at Duke, the Nicholas Institute and Duke Initiative for Science & Society.

Gov. Josh Stein signed an executive order establishing the bipartisan North Carolina Energy Policy Task Force to strengthen the state’s electricity infrastructure and energy affordability as demand increases. The 26-member task force includes Tim Profeta, a Nicholas Institute executive in residence who has been working with other Duke University experts on solutions for load growth—a topic the task force will explore.

"Necessity is the mother of invention. And right now we’re in a supply-constrained environment where it takes a substantial amount of time to get generation and transmission expansions," Tyler Norris, lead author of an influential Duke University study, told Energywire. "To the extent that demand response can be exchanged for an accelerated interconnection or some speed upside, that’s the holy grail for hyperscalers."

Google recently announced two new utility agreements that rely on demand response, a strategy that schedules and manages energy-intensive computing workloads to boost energy efficiency, reports The Energy Mix. The announcement cited a Duke University study that found flexibility is "a promising, near-term strategy for addressing structural transformations in the U.S. electric power system."

If data centers could commit to not requiring power at times of extremely high demand, they could essentially piggyback on existing grid infrastructure, reports Heatmap News. Widely cited research by Duke University scholars demonstrated that curtailing large loads for as little as 0.5% of their annual uptime could allow almost 100 gigawatts of new demand to connect to the grid without requiring extensive, costly upgrades.

President Donald Trump has reordered U.S. energy policy in pursuit of “energy dominance.” The National Interest's Energy World section recently invited 14 leading experts to write articles addressing what "energy dominance" should mean and how America can best achieve it. Four of the contributing authors—including Nicholas Institute Director Brian Murray—joined a webinar to discuss their varied perspectives.