Building the plane while it’s flying: data centers, utilities, and the new rules of power
Interchange Recharged
Wood Mackenzie
4.8 • 535 Ratings
🗓️ 10 February 2026
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
After more than a decade of flat demand, the US power sector is now facing explosive growth, arriving faster than grids, generation, and transmission can be built. In this episode, Interim host of Interchange Recharged Bridget van Dorsten is joined by Chris Seiple, Vice Chairman of Power & Renewables at Wood Mackenzie, to unpack one of the defining challenges facing the modern energy system: how utilities, developers, and policymakers are responding to an unprecedented surge in electricity demand driven by data centres, AI, and reshoring manufacturing.
Bridget and Chris explore what makes this moment different, why planning cycles are colliding with short technology investment horizons, and how this mismatch is forcing a fundamental rethink of how the power business works, from energy policy to energy finance. The main point is that the difference between regulated and deregulated markets is widening, as vertically integrated utilities strengthen their advantage in managing large loads.
New mechanisms like large-load tariffs are reshaping rate design, investment risk, and affordability - Chris explains how. Plus, deregulated markets may be approaching a tipping point, as traditional price signals struggle to accommodate demand arriving at this scale and speed. What does it all mean for energy?
Crucially, the episode looks beyond the immediate crunch to the longer-term implications for the energy transition. From renewable energy and solar energy pipelines to grid resilience, transmission innovation, and behind-the-meter solutions, this demand boom could become a powerful catalyst for clean tech, clean technology, and energy innovation, even as subsidy regimes change and capital costs rise.
The discussion also touches on the role of hydrogen, nuclear, and emerging grid technologies in supporting future energy projects, and why this period of rapid load growth may ultimately accelerate decarbonisation rather than slow it. If you’re tracking climate policy, climate change, green finance, and long-term energy predictions, this episode is for you; hear why today’s data centre boom could shape the next several decades of the power system.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is a precursor of something that's really big. |
| 0:06.0 | This is going to be the century of electricity. |
| 0:09.4 | Right now, it's about AI. |
| 0:11.9 | But if you look at the long-term trends and things like robotics and electric vehicles, |
| 0:17.5 | this is just the beginning of the demand growth that this industry is going to have to |
| 0:22.0 | deal with. There needs to be a bit of an adaptation from the utilities themselves on how to make this |
| 0:27.3 | fair for the rate payer. Typically, chips have a five-year life. When somebody buys a chip, |
| 0:33.7 | they depreciate those over five years because they expect it will be a new technology, |
| 0:37.5 | and they will have to replace those chips. When an investor invests in a chip, they depreciate those over five years because they expect it will be a new technology, and they will have to replace those chips. When an investor invests in a power plant, it's typically |
| 0:42.8 | a 30-year life. And that is kind of the biggest mismatch between these two industries. |
| 0:51.0 | Wood McKenzie's Solar Energy and Storage Summit is back in Denver on the 29th and 30th of April, |
| 0:57.0 | 2026. It's co-located with the brand new North American Power and Renewables Forum, |
| 1:03.0 | which features senior speakers from across the US power sector. |
| 1:07.0 | Come and join over 450 senior leaders from US.S. power developers, utilities, and independent power producers to tackle the industry's biggest challenges. |
| 1:17.7 | From navigating life after tax credits to capturing the load growth boom, discover how the energy mix is evolving and how the U.S. is going to meet that power demand. |
| 1:29.3 | Seats are limited, so register now at Woodmac.com. Welcome back to the interchange recharged. I'm Bridget Van Dorsden, and you may |
| 1:36.8 | have noticed a new look. We've updated our show art, but the podcast itself hasn't changed. |
| 1:42.7 | We'll still be bringing you the same great deep dives |
| 1:44.9 | as we always do. Now, a few weeks ago, I talked with Blume Energy about fuel cells as one of the |
| 1:51.1 | solutions to the data center power demand needs. And today, I wanted to take a step back and look |
| 1:57.5 | at the bigger picture, because it's not just about which technologies can deploy the |
| 2:02.3 | fastest. It's also about a fundamental transformation and how the power business works in order to |
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