NERC advances grid reliability standards for AI data centers

The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) is moving toward adopting new reliability standards to manage the impact of large computational loads, such as AI data centers and cryptocurrency mining, on the power grid. These standards follow a Level 3 alert issued in May after incidents where data centers caused rapid demand oscillations that threatened regional grid stability.

If approved by the NERC Board of Trustees and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the rules will establish requirements for interconnection studies, modeling, operational data, and load protection coordination. This comes as summer peak demand is forecast to grow by 224 GW over the next decade, a 24% increase from 2025 levels.

Separately, the electric industry faces increasing interdependence with the natural gas sector. Natural-gas-fired generation accounted for 43.2% of U.S. electricity in 2023 and has continued to grow. This connection creates vulnerabilities during extreme weather, such as Winter Storm Elliott in 2022, where gas well freeze-offs and electrical dependencies led to significant unplanned outages and record manual load sheds in the Eastern Interconnection.