US Will Roll Out Pilot Surveys to Track Energy Use by Data Centers

Source: US News & World Report/Reuters

March 24, 2026, at 11:49 a.m.


NEW YORK, March 24 (Reuters) - The ⁠U.S. ⁠Department of Energy's information ⁠arm will launch a series of pilot surveys on ​Wednesday aimed at gauging the energy use of the country's data centers, the administrator ‌of the agency told Reuters.

Silicon ‌Valley is pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into its expansion ⁠of energy-intensive ⁠data centers across the U.S., but the scale of the ​sector's explosive power use remains unclear. Surveys show Americans are concerned about whether the power needs of artificial intelligence will raise their utility bills as tech giants ​explore using nuclear power, natural gas or coal to power their data centers.

"It ⁠really is ⁠a data exploration exercise ⁠to ​figure out what exactly is going on in this very important part of ​the economy that we ⁠don't have a lot of visibility into," Energy Information Administration head Tristan Abbey said at the CERAWeek conference in Houston.

The EIA will begin the surveys in three states before expanding to others. Virginia, home to the world's ⁠largest concentration of data centers, is one of the three states, along ⁠with Washington State and Texas. Initial survey questions cover whether data centers have backup power supplies, and if so, what types of fuels they use, Abbey said.

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