Data Centers and Generation Capacity over the Next Decade: Potential Benefits of Flexibility

Flexible demand response offers the potential to significantly reduce the amount of new capacity needed to meet rapidly growing electricity demand from data centers over the next 5 to 10 years. Without flexibility, the additional electricity may largely be provided by new gas units; with flexibility, the capacity mix shifts more toward renewables.

Load flexibility can feasibly reduce system costs by tens of billions of dollars over the next decade and lower electricity prices for both data centers and retail customers when compared to a situation where data centers do not engage in much demand response. Potential benefits can be realized even with limited temporal flexibility.

Specific findings in this report’s modeling should be viewed as illustrative of broad trends and as a call for more information and analysis.

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• Report: Rethinking Load Growth: Assessing the Potential for Integration of Large Flexible Loads in US Power Systems (February 2025)

For media inquiries, contact the Nicholas Institute communications team at ni-comm@duke.edu.