The Growing Power Demand of the US?

America’s power demand is surging, but our aging grid can’t keep up. To meet the future, we need smarter, more resilient infrastructure—starting with transformers built here in the United States.

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<a href="https://elscotransformers.com/blog/elsco-meeting-growing-power-demand/"><IMG SRC="https://elscotransformers.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/elsco-meeting-growing-power-demand.jpg" alt="US’s Growing Power Demand" width="800" border="0" /></a><br />Source: <a href="https://elscotransformers.com/">ELSCO Transformers</a>

What It Will Take to Meet the US’s Growing Power Demand

The US energy production is at an all-time high. But it’s not nearly enough to match future demand

In the next 25 years, Power demand will be 50% higher

The Future is Electric: If Only We Can Match Its Pace

• In 2023, US power use was 4,049 terawatt hours (TWh)
  • How are we using this energy?:
    • Transportation (37% of all energy consumption)
      • Cars, buses, motorcycles, trains, aircraft, and ships
    • Industrial (35% of all energy consumption)
      • Manufacturing, agriculture, mining, and construction
    • Residential (15%)
      • Homes and apartments
    • Commercial (13% of all energy consumption)
      • Offices, malls, stores, schools, hospitals, hotels, warehouses, restaurants, and places of worship and public assembly
• But we’ll need a minimum of 5,178 terawatt hours by 2050 to keep up with demand
  • But what can you power with 1 Terawatt hour?
    • The internet ~15 days
    • The state of California ~12.5 days
    • 100 million homes ~1 hour
• This “Age of Electricity” has been driven by:
  • Electrification of the US
    • Rapidly adopting EVs in the US could add an extra 100TWh to 185TWh to national electricity demand by 2030
  • The rise of AI
    • Each AI server requires requires ~8 watt-hours (Wh) of energy
      • This is around 23 to 30x the energy of a normal internet search
    • NVIDIA will ship 1.5 million AI server units per year by 2027
      • 400,000 of which may belong to Google (~27%)
      • At full capacity, all 1.5 million servers would consume 85.4TWh of electricity yearly
    • If every standard Google search becomes an LLM search, it will consume the same amount of electricity as Ireland does per year (29.3 TWh)
    • This doesn’t include cooling costs
      • Global data centers will add 50% to the energy cost to keep these remote AI servers cool

What happens if we don’t meet demand?

Without Power…

• Fuel can’t get pumped on demand
  • Would also affect public transportation systems
• Communication networks would be shut down
  • Difficult to access information or contact loved ones
• Supply chains can stall within hours
  • The distribution of food, medicine, and other necessities would halt
• Banking systems would be significantly disrupted
  • Limited access to point-of-sale kiosks or credit card scanners

The inefficiencies of the current power grid

• Between 2018 through 2022, 5% of electricity transmitted and distributed in the US was lost annually
  • In 2025 numbers, this would be 202.45 TWh
    • Light 202,450,000+ homes
    • Cool 101,225,000+ homes
    • Fully power 14,171,500+ homes

One of the best solutions is upgrading our power infrastructure. But this will be more complicated than it sounds.

A Look at America’s Aging Power Grid

• Most of the US electricity grid is between 40 and 70 years old
• This includes:
  • Transmission lines
    • 70% of transmission lines are 25+ years old and approaching end of life
    • May lead to:
      • Power outages
      • Susceptibility to cyber-attacks
      • Community emergencies caused by faulty infrastructure
  • Substations
    • Across the US, Very few of the ~55,000+ substations are staffed, meaning they’re vulnerable to threats
      • November 2022: 6 substations were attacked in the Pacific Northwest
      • February 2022: 3 men pleaded guilty to recruiting and planning for a substation attack in Ohio
      • December 2022: 45,000 homes and businesses without power after shots fired at two substations in Moore County, NC
  • Power transformers
    • The US grid had 60 to 80 million distribution transformers in late 2024
    • The 2050 need could increase by up to 260%
    • ~55% of residential transformers are nearing end of life
      • Most are 40+ years old

Sourcing this equipment is far from easy

What’s in Our Way of Improving Infrastructure?

• System size
  • The US electrical grid flows across 470,000+ miles
    • Enough to circle the Earth ~19 times
• Increasing equipment prices
  • Transformers have nearly doubled in price since 2019
• Long lead times
  • Up to two years for buyers of generator transformers and power transformers
• Replacement costs
  • Replacing the entire US grid would cost nearly $5 trillion
• Power systems waiting to come online
  • Interconnection queues: Power-generating projects waiting to be authorized
    • There are 2.6 TWh of generating capacity sitting idle in interconnection queues nationwide
  • 80% of queued projects get withdrawn due to delays and costs

To meet residential, commercial, industrial, and transportation energy demands.

Transformer capacity may need to increase 160% to 260% by 2050 compared to 2021 levels

So What Should We Do?

• Exploring alternative power sources
  • “U.S. Government Aims To Quadruple Nuclear Energy by 2050”
• Speed up interconnection queues
  • Could instantly double America’s existing power plants
• Improve lead times and quality for necessary infrastructure equipment
  • US-based suppliers such as Electric Service Company (ELSCO)
    • 90% item availability
    • 24-48 hour Quick-Ship
    • 5-year warranty (5 year warranty for our new dry types indoors in a clear & dry environment)
    • Medium voltage dry types available
      • Roughly 99.4 % efficient compared to older models
      • Meets Department of Energy efficiency requirements
• Better infrastructure will lead to a better future for all
  • More support for clean energy
  • Fewer power outages
  • Stabilize energy costs
  • Drive economic growth
  • Resilience against climate-related disruptions

Explore our medium voltage dry type transformers.

ELSCO is keeping America powered; to 2050 and beyond.

Sources:

• https://www.energy.gov/articles/department-energy-releases-report-evaluating-us-grid-reliability-and-security
• https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/01/grid-flexibility-for-resilient-equitable-digital-energy-future/
• https://emp.lbl.gov/publications/queued-2024-edition-characteristics
• https://www.msci.org/u-s-government-aims-to-quadruple-nuclear-energy-capacity-by-2050/
• https://www.nrel.gov/news/detail/program/2024/how-many-transformers-will-the-us-distribution-grid-need-by-2050
• https://emp.lbl.gov/publications/queued-2024-edition-characteristics
• https://interestingengineering.com/energy/us-electric-grid-energy
• https://am.jpmorgan.com/content/dam/jpm-am-aem/global/en/insights/eye-on-the-market/electravision-amv.pdf
• https://www.utilitydive.com/news/electric-transformer-shortage-nrel-niac/738947/
• https://www.heritage.org/homeland-security/commentary/substations-the-weakest-link-americas-power-grid
• https://www.energy.gov/gdo/articles/what-does-it-take-modernize-us-electric-grid
• https://interpro.wisc.edu/aging-electric-infrastructure-in-the-united-states/
• https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=105&t=3
• https://www.eia.gov/consumption/manufacturing/
• https://ember-energy.org/latest-updates/heatwaves-doubled-electricity-demand/
• https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-grids-must-harness-electric-vehicle-growth-tackle-load-risks-2025-03-18/
• http://go.nature.com/3d8sd4t
• https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00616-z
• https://www.energy.gov/articles/doe-releases-new-report-evaluating-increase-electricity-demand-data-centers
• www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-01/-electrification-is-unstoppable-a-utility-ceo-on-building-a-better-grid
• https://thesustainablechoice.com/making-sense-of-energy-units/
• https://profession.americangeosciences.org/society/intersections/faq/what-are-major-sources-and-users-energy-united-states/
• https://www.statista.com/statistics/192872/total-electricity-use-in-the-us-since-2009/
• https://www.makeitelectric.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/grid-reliability-study-nema-deck.pdf
• https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2024/03/the-u-s-has-never-produced-more-energy-than-it-does-today/
• https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-ai-boom-could-use-a-shocking-amount-of-electricity/
• https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(23)00365-3
• https://elscotransformers.com/