The State of Utility Planning, 2025 Q2

As of Q2 2025, US utility resource plans show a trend of increasing electricity demand projections and a corresponding increase in planned gas power plant capacity, leading to a widening gap between projected emissions and net-zero targets.

• Electricity demand projections in the United States are rising significantly, with IRPs anticipating load to grow 24 percent by 2035 compared to 2023 levels. This represents a sharp increase from projections made in January 2021, which estimated 6 percent growth.
• Utilities are increasingly relying on gas capacity to meet load growth and reliability needs, resulting in a shift where planned gas capacity in 2035 now exceeds planned wind and solar capacity by 53 GW. Between 2023 and 2035, plans include 102 GW of gas additions and 258 GW of wind and solar additions.
• There is a significant gap between utility projections and the emissions reductions required for climate alignment. While the IEA Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario suggests the electricity sector reach net-zero by 2035, current IRPs project emissions will be reduced by only 53 percent by 2035 compared to a 2005 baseline.
• Short-term load growth is primarily driven by industrial loads, specifically data centers, though electric vehicle adoption and electrification also contribute. For example, Indiana-Michigan Power Co. projects load will more than double by 2030, with data centers accounting for 60 percent of total load.
• Recent updates in Q2 2025 show a trend of increasing projected emissions and load. Utilities that updated their IRPs this quarter increased projected load through 2035 by 2.0 percent and emissions by 4.5 percent.

APA

RMI (2025). The State of Utility Planning, 2025 Q2. https://rmi.org/resources/the-state-of-utility-planning-2025-q2/

Chicago

RMI. The State of Utility Planning, 2025 Q2. 2025. https://rmi.org/resources/the-state-of-utility-planning-2025-q2/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=RMI |title=The State of Utility Planning, 2025 Q2 |date=15 July 2025 |url=https://rmi.org/resources/the-state-of-utility-planning-2025-q2/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{rmi2025state, author = {{RMI}}, title = {{The State of Utility Planning, 2025 Q2}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2025}, month = jul, url = {https://rmi.org/resources/the-state-of-utility-planning-2025-q2/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }