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Lawmakers hear experts: AI data centers create fast, uncertain load that requires new planning tools
Summary
Experts at a California State Assembly joint hearing warned that rapid growth of AI data centers creates planning uncertainty, urging stochastic and integrated approaches to transmission, generation and storage and interim flexible connection strategies to avoid stranded assets and reliability risks.
Assembly leaders convened a joint informational hearing to examine the energy implications of AI data center build‑out and to press state agencies for planning and operational solutions.
Dr. Nate Gleason of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory opened the session with a technical framing: data centers can be built in months but require transmission that may take a decade, producing wide uncertainty for planners. "Data centers represented 4.4% of total U.S. electricity consumption in 2024," he said, adding that estimates vary and that stochastic optimization and co‑optimization of generation, storage and transmission can produce plans robust across many futures.
Why it matters: California’s planning systems rely on forecasts to schedule expensive transmission and generation projects. If forecasts…
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