US utility American Electric Power (AEP) is expecting a huge increase in its energy load over the next five years, driven almost entirely by data center demand.

In its Q2 2024 earnings results this week, AEP said it has seen customer commitments for more than 15GW of incremental load by the end of the decade, driven by “robust data center demand.”

That figure equates to around 40 percent growth over the next six years compared to AEP’s current total grid load.

That growth is already happening. The utility saw commercial load – the bucket in which data centers sit – grow 12.4 percent over the quarter.

“We continue to see strong interest in Ohio and Texas, as well as several of our vertically integrated states, from customers looking to develop new data processing facilities,” said Ben Fowke, AEP’s interim chief executive officer and president. “To help meet the growing energy needs of our customers and communities, we're making steady progress transforming our generation fleet with active requests for proposals and plans to add more than 20GW of new resources over the next decade.”

In the earnings call with analysts, Fowke added: “These are far from just inquiries. These are serious customers that want to get on the grid and are willing to financially commit to do what it takes to get on the grid.”

Ohio-based AEP operates more than 40,000 miles of transmission lines, the nation's largest electric transmission system, and more than 225,000 miles of distribution lines across 11 states – including Texas, Ohio, Oklahoma, Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky. The company has said it is planning to invest $43 billion over the next five years in grid upgrades.

The 20GW of generating capacity the utility aims to add reportedly includes around 8GW of wind, 6GW of solar, and 5GW of natural gas.