Increased need for electricity is driving elevated demand for power companies to rapidly build out their generation capacity. But Nicholas Institute research shows that, with strategic timing of load use, such demand could be met by the existing power grid.

A key solution to the United States' soaring electrical demand—driven by unprecedented electricity needs from large commercial customers, particularly data centers and their booming artificial intelligence workloads—is load flexibility. This analysis provides a first-order estimate of the potential for accommodating such loads with minimal capacity expansion or impact on demand-supply balance.

In late July 2023, the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) released its much-anticipated rule on interconnection reform, Order 2023. This policy brief explores a deeper reform option known as connect and manage. This less restrictive interconnection approach could speed the deployment of resources in a way that can be managed after their integration with the grid, leading to a larger volume of interconnected generation capacity without sacrificing reliability.