An analysis has shown that accommodating the data center boom in the U.S. will require building 45 gigawatts (GW) of new power plants by 2030, costing 110 billion dollars (approx. 146 trillion won).

According to a report released on the 14th local time by global credit rating agency Moody's, the vast majority of this—over 30 GW—is expected to come from natural gas power, with the rest primarily coming from solar energy and energy storage systems (ESS).

The share of restarted nuclear power plants is projected to not exceed 5%.

One gigawatt is generally equivalent to the power generation of a single nuclear reactor.

Moody's projections were based on forecasts by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The IEA predicted that U.S. data centers will consume 426 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity by 2030.

This forecast indicates that the share of data centers in total U.S. electricity consumption will double from 2025 levels to reach 10%.

Bloomberg interpreted this as showing how urgent large-scale infrastructure expansion is to cope with the surge in U.S. electricity demand—the largest in decades—driven by the proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing.

However, opposition is also mounting, pointing to issues such as rising electricity bills for households and businesses, environmental pollution, water shortages, and the encroachment on public and private land during the construction of big tech's AI infrastructure.

Ryan Wobrock, Senior Vice President at Moody's Global Infrastructure Finance Group, said in an email, "With the construction of new power generation costing 110 billion dollars, U.S. electricity costs will increase by 25 billion to 30 billion dollars (approx. 33 trillion to 40 trillion won) annually," adding, "How these costs will be passed on to consumers depends on regional cost allocation methods and rate-setting procedures."

He projected that "data centers will build their own power plants to directly shoulder up to 15 billion dollars of the total cost," which "will account for about 30% of the total power plant construction cost by 2030."

The U.S. power industry, which saw sluggish demand over the past two decades, is going all out to accelerate the construction of natural gas power plants, which require years of preparation.

In the case of renewable energy, high dependence on the sun and wind makes natural gas generation, which can be operated immediately, more popular.

As concerns over rising electricity rates grow, politicians and regulators have begun reviewing rate structures, which is becoming a potential delaying factor for the construction of new data centers.

The Moody's report pointed out that "the pace of power grid construction—including generation, transmission, and interconnection capacity—is failing to keep up with the pace of data center construction."

(Photo: AP, Yonhap News)