BOSTON — Growing power demand from data centers dominated conversations at the NARUC Summer Policy Summit, where industry members and Trump administration officials advocated for the rapid addition of fossil fuel resources and infrastructure to meet anticipated load growth.  

Speakers at the event framed the AI industry in terms of a global arms race and argued that regulators must be hyper-focused on enabling new resources to come online at a faster pace. 

“I think there is a definite need for the regulatory framework to become more reflective of the world that we live in,” said Corey Hessen, CEO of Homer City Redevelopment, which is developing a campus of gas-powered data centers on the site of a recently retired coal plant in Pennsylvania.  

“The world that we live in means that new load and new generation has a demand to come online faster than ever before, and that will mean that the utilities and regulators must work together to come up with a framework that’s representative of what those needs are,” he said. 

The NARUC meeting, July 27-30, featured noticeably little talk of decarbonization, reflective of rising power demand across the country and the dramatic shift in federal energy policy under the Trump administration. 

Pablo Koziner, chief commercial and operations officer of GE Vernova, said the company has seen a massive surge in orders for gas equipment in recent months.  

GE Vernova has reported a 55-GW backlog of industrial gas turbine bookings and under-reservation agreements, which it expects to continue to grow over the coming years. (See GE Vernova’s Gas Power Equipment Surge Continues.) The company also has a major backlog on electrical equipment orders, including switchgear and transformers. 

“We’re just experiencing a huge amount of this demand,” Koziner said, adding that data center demand outpaces supplier expectations, with data center developers willing to pay high costs for their power needs.  

“The question is: How much new capacity do you need to install to keep up versus how much you can unlock from existing infrastructure? And I think it’s a combination of both,” he said. “There are efficiencies that we can unlock, but there’s certainly a need for a lot more capacity to keep up.” 

In a recent report, Wood Mackenzie said it is tracking 134 GW of proposed data center demand across the country, with new data center proposals concentrated in Texas, Virginia, Pennsylvania and other states in the middle of the country.  

The research and consulting firm says constrained gas supply chains and rapidly rising costs of combined cycle gas plants will pose a significant barrier to scaling up power production over the next few years, with high costs likely exacerbated by the effects of the Trump tariffs. 

Meanwhile, the renewable energy industry is facing major headwinds associated with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and Trump’s executive orders. Renewables could face significant cuts and project cancellations across the country despite rising demand and power costs. (See U.S. Clean Energy Sector Faces Cuts and Limitations.) 

While coastal states with higher energy costs have seen lower data center demand growth, these areas are unlikely to be immune to the effects of AI. Kim Harriman, deputy CEO at Avangrid, which owns electric utilities in Connecticut, Maine and New York, told RTO Insider that AI demand growth “is here, and we see it.” 

She noted that, over the long term, electrification of heating and transportation, the reshoring of manufacturing and housing development also likely will be significant drivers of demand in the region.  

Fossil Fuel Infrastructure

Representatives of the natural gas industry argued that rising power demand will require new gas infrastructure throughout the country, while Trump administration officials said it is essential to retain the nation’s coal fleet. (See Trump Officials Talk Regulatory Rollbacks at NARUC Meeting.) 

“The existing system alone is not going to be enough to meet this demand. We’re going to have to build out more infrastructure,” said Amy Andryszak, CEO of the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America. 

Mary Landrieu, co-chair of Natural Allies and a former Democratic senator from Louisiana, made the case for new gas pipelines while urging attendees to “drop our political ideologies.” 

Natural Allies is a group backed by gas pipeline companies, focused on promoting “the great asset of natural gas” to “Democrats primarily,” Landrieu said.  

Landrieu praised recent statements from Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont (D) indicating he is open to new gas infrastructure, and she repeatedly emphasized the importance of an “all-of-the-above approach” to energy policy. 

Andryszak said opposition from “certain states” has been an impediment to building out gas infrastructure, and added she hopes “conversations around demand for more energy of all forms” will cause states that have opposed gas infrastructure to “rethink some of their policies.” 

Efforts to expand gas pipeline capacity into the Northeast have faced strong opposition from climate activists and Democratic politicians in recent years, while proponents of natural gas hope regulatory rollbacks and increased federal support for pipelines will help facilitate projects in the Northeast.  

In Massachusetts, where much of New England’s gas demand is concentrated, Gov. Maura Healey (D) has been relatively quiet on the issue of gas expansion but has not shut down the possibility of new gas infrastructure. 

Natural gas combustion and methane leaks from gas networks are key drivers of climate change. Leaked methane has a strong short-term warming effect on the climate, and scientists warn that an expanded reliance on natural gas is not compatible with efforts to decarbonize the economy and stabilize the climate. 

Even in the absence of regulatory hurdles, proposals to build new natural gas pipelines into New England face questions about funding, and industry experts have expressed skepticism about the likelihood of new gas infrastructure in the region due to a lack of counterparties to pay for the infrastructure. (See New Pipelines Unlikely for New England, Experts Say.)