The rapid growth of artificial intelligence and hyperscale data centers is forcing the energy industry to rethink everything from grid planning and project development to workforce training and power plant design, according to executives speaking Tuesday at ACP's CLEANPOWER event in Houston.
During a panel discussion focused on clean energy project deployment, leaders from Clearway Energy Group, Mortenson, and Intersect Power described a power sector entering a new phase, one defined by unprecedented electricity demand growth and pressure to deliver infrastructure faster than traditional development processes allow.
“We are in the middle of a generational moment,” moderator Russell Gold of T1 Energy said, pointing to forecasts that electricity demand could rise dramatically over the coming decades as AI, data centers, electrification, and new industrial loads come online.
For developers, that demand is already changing the scale of projects.
Craig Cornelius, CEO of Clearway Energy Group, said projects that would have been considered large just a few years ago are now becoming standard.
“A really big project in California or the desert Southwest was 300 to 500 megawatts just three years ago,” Cornelius said. “An adequate project now is twice that size, a gigawatt scale or more.”
At the same time, developers are increasingly being asked to move projects from concept to construction far faster than traditional utility planning cycles.
“You suddenly need to go from an idea to mobilizing $6 billion of infrastructure in the space of a year,” he said.
The result is an industry trying to solve a fundamentally different problem than it was designed for.
Data centers are changing expectations
Executives said hyperscale technology companies are becoming some of the most influential customers in the energy sector.
Mark Donahue, executive vice president at Mortenson, said the company's renewable energy and data center businesses have both expanded rapidly in recent years as AI infrastructure spending accelerates.
“This year alone, we will build over 45 wind, solar, and energy storage projects,” Donahue said. “We are currently working on 12 data center campuses.”
The demands coming from technology companies are also reshaping how projects are delivered.
“What the hyperscalers have realized is to be able to accomplish what they want to accomplish, they have to look for partnerships,” Donahue said. “They’re looking for those companies that can really lean in with them.”
According to panelists, the industry's initial focus on speed is now evolving into a broader push for long-term strategic partnerships, standardized project designs, and integrated planning between energy providers and technology firms.
The grid remains the biggest obstacle
Despite advances in technology and project development, panelists repeatedly identified one challenge as the industry's most significant bottleneck: connecting new resources to the grid.
Cornelius argued that existing interconnection and permitting processes were built for a different era of power development and are struggling to accommodate the volume of both new generation and large electricity loads entering the system.
“I think the dominant bottleneck that we see in new power supply in the U.S. is connection to the grid,” he said.
He suggested the industry could benefit from standardized approaches to data center load forecasting, interconnection studies, and permitting processes that would allow both generation and large loads to move through development pipelines more efficiently.
Others suggested a different approach.
Bringing load to generation
Sheldon Kimber, founder and CEO of Intersect Power, argued that some developers are already moving beyond the assumption that new loads must wait for traditional grid expansion. Instead, he said, the industry is increasingly exploring ways to colocate energy infrastructure and large electricity users.
“The grid is broken,” Kimber said, describing a long-held belief that transmission development would struggle to keep pace with demand growth.
That perspective helped shape Intersect Power's strategy of developing large energy campuses combining solar, wind, battery storage, and flexible natural gas generation. The company was acquired by Google earlier this year, a move Kimber described as part of a broader trend toward closer integration between technology companies and energy developers.
Under the model, large data centers can be built alongside dedicated energy resources rather than waiting years for new transmission infrastructure.
“We're moving from hair-on-fire to planning the trillion-dollar buildout of the most advanced infrastructure in the history of humanity,” Kimber said.
Workforce and supply chain pressures continue
The scale of development is also creating new demands on labor and equipment supply chains.
Donahue said the industry continues to face shortages of skilled workers, particularly electricians, though contractors are making significant investments in training programs.
Mortenson expects to have more than 1,000 apprentices in its workforce development programs by the end of the year, he said.
The company is also expanding its use of prefabrication and manufacturing approaches that move more construction activity off-site, helping accelerate schedules while improving consistency and safety.
“Failure is not an option,” Donahue said.
A new era for energy development
While panelists discussed a range of technical and operational challenges, the conversation repeatedly returned to a central theme: the traditional boundaries between the energy and technology sectors are fading.
As AI-driven demand growth reshapes electricity markets, technology companies are becoming increasingly involved in power procurement, infrastructure planning, and project development.
For developers, contractors, utilities, and grid operators, executives suggested the next decade will require new models of collaboration and faster approaches to deploying energy infrastructure.
The challenge is significant, but so is the opportunity.
“The scale and the speed of these jobs are just enormous,” Donahue said. “And they've pushed us into innovation.”
