Data centers get ready — the Senate wants to see your power bills

Summary

Two U.S. senators on Thursday fired the latest salvo in an increasingly active front against data centers and their energy use. Senators Josh Hawley and Elizabeth Warren sent a letter to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) asking it to collect details on energy use from data centers — and how that use is affecting the grid. The senators urged the EIA “to establish a mandatory annual reporting requirement for data centers and other large loads,” they wrote in the letter, which TechCrunch has viewed. “As electricity demand growth continues to accelerate after years of relative stagnation, the lack of reliable, standardized data on large load energy consumption poses significant risks to effective grid planning and oversight.” Wired was first to report on the letter. The letter isn’t the first move by politicians to try and place new regulatory requirements on data centers. Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Wednesday they would introduce legislation that would halt new data center construction until Congress could come to an agreement on how to regulate AI. Energy use by data centers has exploded in recent years. Google’s data centers, for example, doubled their consumption between 2020 and 2024. The trend isn’t likely to change in the near future. By 2035, planned new data centers will nearly triple the sector’s energy demand. The EIA is a government agency tasked with collecting and analyzing data related to the energy system — sort of like a Census bureau for the grid. It was established in 1977 under the Department of Energy in the wake of the oil shocks of the early 1970s. For decades, the EIA has gathered a wealth of information about energy use in the U.S., including costs, generating sources, and energy-efficiency programs. It also tracks how different sectors use energy, though it only focuses on four very broad categories: residential, commercial, industrial, and transportation. Hawley and Warren are also asking the EIA t...