RESTON, Va. (May 20, 2025) — ICF (NASDAQ:ICFI), a global consulting and technology services provider, today released a new report that reveals how electricity demand and usage will grow over the next 25 years, where it will grow, and the potential impacts on the reliability and affordability of electricity in the United States.
Key findings include:
- U.S. electricity demand is expected to grow 25% by 2030 and 78% by 2050.
- U.S. peak electricity demand is expected to grow 14% by 2030 and 54% through 2050.
- Residential retail rates could increase between 15% and 40% by 2030, depending on the local market.
These findings reveal a dramatic increase in electricity demand, far outpacing historical trends over the past two decades and even last year’s projections by ICF, highlighting how rapidly the energy landscape is evolving. AI, cloud-based services, and cryptocurrencies are driving demand for new data centers and computing power; plus, consumers and businesses are increasingly choosing electric vehicles, heat pumps, and other electricity-hungry products.
To help manage this growth, the report also provides recommendations across the energy sector for implementing an “all of the above” power generation mix across technologies and fuel types will be required to meet rising demand. The report also provides strategies on how to increase investment and improve performance in demand-side management programs that promote demand response, energy conservation, behind-the-meter capacity, and more. Broad promotion of these types of programs could meet 10% or more of electricity demand by 2030; this is up from 8% in 2025.
“This is a pivotal moment as rising demand creates urgent challenges for the grid,” said Anne Choate, ICF executive vice president for energy, environment and infrastructure. “Meeting this demand will take a coordinated effort from across the energy sector on an ‘all-of-the-above’ strategy. Success will require nuanced pricing, temporal considerations, and customer engagement, including demand-side management programs which can deliver fast, affordable solutions while scaling for long-term capacity, reliability, and affordability.”
ICF partners with the nation’s top utilities and developers, as well as federal agencies, state energy offices and non-governmental organizations, providing end-to-end offerings across the energy value chain—from strategy to planning and analysis to implementation and customer engagement. The company currently delivers hundreds of active demand-side management programs across North America.