Tim Profeta is an executive in residence at the Nicholas Institute whose areas of expertise include climate change and energy policy, the Clean Air Act, and adaptive use of current environmental laws to address evolving environmental challenges. Part of a Duke Climate Commitment series of climate research profiles.

New Jersey Gov.-Elect Mikie Sherrill announced Nicholas Institute Executive in Residence Tim Profeta as one of the 17 experts who will serve on her "Making Energy More Affordable and Reliable" transition action team.

A seminal white paper from Duke University researchers suggests "headroom" available for data centers to reduce their energy consumption during system peaks could unlock up to 100 GW of spare capacity to integrate these large loads. Elizabeth K. Whitney, managing principal at Meguire Whitney, writes in Latitude Media about how hyperscalers would need to curtail their energy use from the grid to tap into that headroom.

For 20 years, the Nicholas Institute has pursued the “quest for yes”— bringing people together across differences, grounding big ideas in evidence and co-creating durable solutions to environmental and energy challenges. On Oct. 23, the institute welcomed students, scholars, alumni and partners in the community to an anniversary celebration that blended reflection with forward momentum.

Established and emerging environmental leaders came together Oct. 23 for a celebration of the Nicholas Institute’s 20th anniversary, where University stakeholders reflected on a legacy of innovation and looked to carry the torch forward in a collective “quest for yes,” reports The Chronicle.

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.

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.

Businesses across industries are "in a sticky place because it’s such a fraught time politically," Nicholas Institute executive in residence Tim Profeta told The Wall Street Journal. But they "can’t shrink from the inevitability of needing to abate greenhouse gases," said Profeta, who helped develop greenhouse gas regulations at the Environmental Protection Agency during the Biden administration.

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.

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.

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.

Google announced that it had reached agreements with Indiana Michigan Power (I&M) and Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to use flexible demand capabilities in its data centers, enabling the company to shift or reduce energy demand during times when the electrical grid is most stressed. Google cited a recent Duke University analysis that showed how load flexibility could help bridge the gap between short-term load growth and long-term clean energy solutions.

Constellation and GridBeyond are collaborating to use GridBeyond’s AI-powered predictive analytics platform to help business customers in PJM cut costs by reducing energy use during peak periods. A joint announcement points to a recent analysis by Duke scholars that found much of the growing demand for energy in the United States could be met if some large energy users curtailed their energy use for just a few hours each year.

Decarbonizing the global economy will require trillions of dollars, largely from private sector investors. What could help accelerate the mobilization of private capital to advance climate solutions? Leaders from finance, government, industry, and academia exchanged ideas about this at the second annual “From Billions to Trillions” summit at Duke University on April 9, 2025. 

Greg Robinson, cofounder and CEO of Aston, writes for the Forbes Technology Council about two studies that illustrate on-grid and off-grid approaches to the future of U.S. power. The first study, by the Nicholas Institute, focuses on creative ways to become flexible with the grid to manage the spike in energy demand due to the rise of AI data centers and the electrification of everything. The other study focuses on off-grid solar microgrids as a way to solve AI energy spikes.