The global AI and data center boom will need acceleration of renewable energy rollout to avoid plunging millions of people into energy poverty as power bills jump, the founder of China’s major wind turbine maker Envision told the Financial Times.
“For this AI revolution, lots of people may end up with energy poverty,” Envision’s founder and chief executive officer Lei Zhang told FT.
The growing electricity demand from AI infrastructure and data centers is changing the narrative of the need of renewables. Clean energy is no longer just a way to cut global greenhouse gas emissions, “It’s because of long-term prosperity,” according to Zhang.
Envision, the company he has founded, boasts more than 80 gigawatts (GW) of wind turbines installed to date, and accounted for 60% of all Chinese overseas turbine sales three years in a row in 2024.
Global electricity demand is rising at the fastest pace in 15 years and will continue to do so at least until the end of the decade as AI infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, and electrification have ushered in The Age of Electricity, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its Electricity 2026 report earlier this month.
Power demand is expected to grow by more than 3.5% per year on average through the end of the decade, the agency added.
Artificial intelligence, data centers, and advanced manufacturing support the return to growth in power demand in advanced economies, including in the United States, according to the IEA.
U.S. electricity demand rose by 2.1% in 2025 and is expected to grow by nearly 2% annually through 2030. The rapid expansion of data centers will drive half of the increase, the agency noted.
However, The Age of Electricity needs to see a significant scale-up of investment in grids to accommodate the surge in power installations.
Currently, more than 2,500 GW worth of projects – renewables, storage, and projects with large loads such as data centers – are stalled in connection queues worldwide, according to the IEA.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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