The rise of artificial intelligence has a turbocharged demand for electricity, and all those in the United States energy industry want a part of the action.
The last participant is Chevron, the second largest oil and gas company in the country, which sees the opportunity in the construction of natural gas fed power plants that will feed the energy directly to the data centers.
Chevron is working with the engine No. 1, an investment firm based in San Francisco better known to fight a successful battle against Exxon Mobil in 2021. Companies say they have ordered critical equipment, explored potential sites and can have their First floor online within three years.
“It is an opportunity for us to help satisfy the moment and address this growing need to be reliable and affordable,” said Mike Wirth, executive director of Chevron, in an interview.
Chevron's announcement is the last example of how much the promise of ai, a consumer of voracious electricity, is remodeling the economy. Petroleum producers are emphasizing their strategies and are inclined to generate energy, a business that many of them had previously sworn because it was much less profitable than drilling and processing oil and gas. Last month, Exxon said he also wanted to enter the business of selling electricity to the data centers.
But in a reminder that the perspectives of ai data centers and the growing demand for electricity are highly uncertain, technology and energy existence fell on Monday. Investors were baffled by the impressive advances in ai made by an unknown new Chinese company, Deepseek, who said he had achieved their profits using a modest number of computer chips that consumed relatively little energy. The actions of the Nvidia chips manufacturer fell by 17 percent and the constellation energy stock, a large energy producer, closed more than 20 percent.
“There is always the potential for the markets to surprise him,” Wirth said. But he added that being early to the market and maintaining its low costs would protect Chevron against the possibility that the growth of energy demand does not reach current expectations.
Your company is just alone.
Many energy producers are increasing, and many are investing in natural gas generation capacity specifically. Constellation, which has a large fleet of nuclear plants, agreed this month to buy Calpina Rival, which has many natural gas plants, for $ 16.4 billion. And last week, Nextera Energy said he was planning to build more gas fed power plants.
The expectations of how quickly the demand for electricity of the United States will increase widely. What is clear is that it is likely that data centers consume much more power in the country than today. A recent study of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Estimated that facilities are prepared to use up to 12 percent of American electricity in 2028, compared to 4.4 percent in 2023.
Chevron and the engine No. 1 said that they have reserved seven gas turbines from Ge Vernova, one of the companies created by the rupture of General Electric. The team will be delivered from 2026. Chevron and the engine No. 1, which did not say how much they plan to spend, have been in conversations with possible customers and hope to build up to four gigawatts of gas generation capacity.
Natural gas power plants cost around $ 2 billion per Gigavatio, Morgan Stanley is recently estimated.
In this case, the plants would be located together with the data centers they feed. Like Exxon, partners expect their facilities not to be connected to the electricity network to start, so plants can put into operation more quickly. Network managers may take years to pass connection applications.
Eventually, however, they aim to ensure network connections, said Chris James, engine investment director No. 1. “An interconnection of the grid allows us to provide energy to the network when you need it,” he said.
Technological giants such as Microsoft and Google have established objectives to obtain all their energy from sources that do not contribute to climate change after taking into account carbon capture and other technologies. But some technological companies now say that it will be difficult to obtain all the energy they need in the coming years without depending on natural gas, which produces carbon dioxide when it burns. Greenhouse gas is the main cause of climate change.
“It is this valley between now and then that leaves many people scratching their heads and realize that if you do not rest on the gas, the answer could be worse,” said Jesse Noffsinger, a partner of the McKinsey Consulting firm & Company
Chevron and the engine No. 1 said their plants could be built in several regions. They have ruled out the east coast due to infrastructure limitations and comments of potential customers.
Companies also looked for sites Able to accommodate carbon dioxide emissions capture and kidnap, said James.
However, companies do not plan to incorporate that technology or renewable energy from the beginning.
“We are very sure that over time as a political environment, it clarifies itself, as we advance in the development of technology, that some of these other alternatives will be part of it,” Wirth said.
(Tagstotranslate) artificial intelligence