Expertise Data Centers and Large Loads

E3 helps clients answer the full range of questions that large load growth raises. We forecast data center and industrial demand, model the resources needed to serve it, and analyze who pays for the infrastructure. We design the tariffs, contracts, and risk protections that new large customers require. We also advise on siting and due diligence, grid interconnection, and power procurement, including clean energy, emerging technologies, and on-site generation. Our clients include utilities, regulators, state and local governments, hyperscalers, and data center developers.

Large loads now often arrive in blocks of several hundred megawatts, and they can shift, slip, or disappear faster than planning cycles can respond. Forecasting methods built on economic and population growth were not designed for this. We start with a bottom-up inventory of announced and proposed facilities, then vary project timing, likelihood of completion, and site operations to produce a range of outcomes rather than a single number. The risk runs in both directions: overforecasting leaves existing customers paying for unused capacity, while underforecasting threatens reliability and local economic development.

Once demand is understood, the next questions are cost and risk. We conduct cost-of-service studies at the facility and system level to determine whether large customers cover the cost of serving them. We benchmark large load tariffs across utilities, including many we have helped design, and translate different rate structures into the bills customers would pay. We also help design protections for other customers on the system, including contract minimums, upfront deposits, credit and collateral requirements, ramp schedules, and queue management rules. For local communities and stakeholders, we have helped design community benefits agreements, which are increasingly important to sustainable and equitable large load growth.

Load flexibility and on-site generation come up often in this work, since both can help a facility connect sooner without waiting for new infrastructure. Working with utilities, regulators, governments, hyperscalers, and developers on the same questions gives E3 a 360-degree view of how large load growth affects the grid and its customers.