The figure is 181 GW, and BloombergNEF is careful about what it is not. In a report released on 11 November, "Powering the Data Center Boom: How Grid Policy Can Deliver Clean Power Faster", the research firm says it has tracked 181 GW of announced gas-fired generation proposed alongside data centers, more than 90% of it in the United States. The projects differ widely in maturity and timing, and BNEF describes the total as an indication of possible scale, not a forecast of what will be built. The report was commissioned by Bloomberg Philanthropies.
A Count Of Announcements
The release gives no split by technology, so it does not say how much of the 181 GW is gas turbines and how much reciprocating engines, and it does not say how much is permitted or financed. Startup Fortune, summarizing the research, adds some of the names behind the number: Meta's Hyperion campus in Louisiana, planned around a 2 GW combined-cycle plant, and the Stargate site in Abilene, Texas, where VoltaGrid holds a state permit for 210 gas generators with about 700 MW. In the UK, according to the Guardian as cited by Superpower Daily, planned data centers made more than 100 enquiries about gas connections in 2024 and 2025.
The reason is the same everywhere. Grid constraints in the US and Europe delay the connection of large loads, and a developer earns by energizing early. Mark Daly, who heads data center research at BNEF, says the economics of AI have made speed to power a top priority.
152 Million Tons Above The Grid Average
For the US, BNEF ran the numbers on a case in which every announced on-site plant is built and operated under its assumptions. The plants would then emit about 345 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent a year. That is 152 million tons more than supplying the same data center capacity from average US grid electricity, a difference equal to 10% of the US power sector's emissions in 2025. The 10% belongs to the difference, not to the total, a point some of the coverage blurs.
The second finding is harder to put in a number. Many of these plants are meant to carry a site only until the grid connection arrives. BNEF finds that once they are running, the economics could keep them generating, and it speaks of a longer-term lock-in risk beyond the annual emissions. For developed markets it considers a grid connection the more sustainable option. Where a grid still leans heavily on coal, the report notes, a grid-connected data center can be worse than one with on-site gas.
Behind all this stands a demand forecast: data center electricity use almost quadrupling to 2,354 TWh by 2035, about 7% of global consumption. The report reviews how 17 markets try to speed up connections - flexible connections, special zones, clean-power procurement among them - and admits that there is little evidence so far on which approach works best. Superpower Daily points to the UK's Data Centre Covenant of 28 October, which would allow temporary on-site generation only for exceptionally strategic projects and only until a grid connection is secured.
Bridge Plant Or Permanent Plant
From the equipment side, the lock-in BNEF describes starts with the enquiry. A plant bought as a three-year bridge and a plant meant to run for twenty years are different purchases: the rating class of the engines or turbines, the emissions equipment, the maintenance contract and the way the cooling is laid out for continuous duty through the hottest weeks of the year all depend on which one it is. In practice many specifications say "temporary" and then ask for baseload hours. If the plant is likely to stay, it is cheaper to say so at the start than to rebuild the auxiliaries later. A list of such projects is in our item on the Cleanview tracker, and the application itself on our data centers page.
Sources: BloombergNEF (press release), Superpower Daily, Startup Fortune
