Energy

A.I. Boom Drives U.S. Plans for Nearly Three Times as Much Gas Power as in 2023

co-produced by AI07. October 2026, 08:43

Power plant of Silicon Valley Power in Santa Clara, California, illuminated at night with a full moon — A power plant of Silicon Valley Power in Santa Clara, California. © American Public Power Association / Unsplash

A.I. needs power, and in the United States that power increasingly comes from gas: Planned capacity for new grid-connected gas plants has nearly tripled since early 2023. The main driver is data centers for artificial intelligence. At the same time, plans for new wind power are shrinking.

60 Gigawatts of New Gas Plants by 2030

That is the finding of a new analysis and interactive map from the advocacy group Environment America Research & Policy Center and the think tank Frontier Group. Based on filings with the federal Energy Information Administration, they put planned gas capacity through the end of 2030 at 60.4 gigawatts. In December 2025, the figure was 41.8 gigawatts, a 44 percent jump in just eight months. In early 2023, it stood at 20.4 gigawatts.

For perspective, the proposed new gas capacity alone exceeds the total generating capacity of every individual U.S. state except Texas, California and Florida, according to the analysis. These are planned projects, and not all of them will be built. But the figures show how quickly the U.S. power industry’s plans are shifting toward gas.

Renewables are moving in the opposite direction. Planned solar additions have stalled, and planned wind additions have fallen 33.9 percent since December 2025. Solar still leads the list of expected new generating capacity, but it is not keeping pace with the data center boom.

“The data is clear: Surging electricity demand to power data centers is putting our nation’s transition to clean energy at risk,” said Andre Delattre, chief operating officer of The Public Interest Network, which includes Environment America. Given the lifespans of new gas plants, he warned, they could lock the country into decades of fossil fuel dependence.

Texas Builds a Third

Texas alone accounts for 33.2 percent of the planned new gas capacity, about 20 gigawatts. If all the projects were built, the state’s gas generating capacity would grow by almost a quarter. It is followed by:

Louisiana: 6.6 gigawatts
Pennsylvania: 4.4 gigawatts
Oklahoma: 3 gigawatts
Mississippi: 2.6 gigawatts

Together, the five states account for about 60 percent of the planned capacity. New gas plants are planned in 32 states and Washington, D.C. And the tally is incomplete: Off-grid gas plants that supply data centers directly are not included. According to the authors, they could add tens of gigawatts more.

The Health Cost of Emissions

Burning gas produces pollutants that contribute to soot and ground-level ozone. Then there is methane, the main component of natural gas, which can leak during production and transport. The analysis cites modeling estimating that emissions from fossil fuel power plants, on-site gas turbines and backup diesel generators serving data centers could cause about 600,000 cases of asthma symptoms and roughly 1,300 premature deaths in 2028 under a high-growth scenario.

“If we build new gas plants, in addition to delaying the retirement of coal plants and slowing the growth of renewables, we jeopardize our health, our planet, and the well-being of future generations,” said Johanna Neumann, senior director of the Campaign for 100% Renewable Energy at Environment America.

Communities Push Back

Local resistance is growing, both against the data centers themselves and against the power plants meant to supply them. In the first half of 2026 alone, about 120 data center projects worth nearly €170 billion were blocked or delayed by local opposition, according to Data Center Watch. The number of organized citizens’ groups more than doubled within six months to 843 in 49 states. According to an analysis by Heatmap News, $260 billion (about €231 billion) worth of data centers have already been canceled in 2026 after local pushback, and three in four Americans would oppose a data center near their home.

Residents fear rising electricity bills, because the cost of new power plants and transmission lines is often passed on to all customers, along with water use, noise and emissions. Memphis has become a symbol of the fight: There, Mr. Musk’s A.I. company xAI ran numerous gas turbines for its Colossus data center, prompting residents and civil rights groups to take legal action over air pollution. Hundreds of counties and towns have since imposed moratoriums or bans on new data centers.

The Counterargument: Gas as A.I.’s Backbone

The energy industry and the U.S. government, by contrast, see gas as indispensable for meeting A.I.’s power needs quickly and around the clock. “As we’ve put a lot of intermittent generation into the grid, we’ve got issues now with reliable supply,” Chevron’s chief executive, Mike Wirth, said at the CERAWeek energy conference. New demand, he said, requires different solutions. Energy Secretary Chris Wright called A.I. “an energy intensive manufacturing industry” there, saying the country needs to “work at warp speed” to supply it with power.