Meeting North Carolina’s Future Energy Needs in 2050: Challenges and Opportunities
North Carolina faces significant opportunities and challenges when it comes to ensuring reliable and affordable electricity in the coming decades. Dramatic increases in demand driven by population growth, an influx of new and expanding businesses into the state and the ongoing electrification of the transportation sector are placing tremendous strains on an aging electrical grid. The 2025 Emerging Issues Forum will focus on how best to meet these challenges while ensuring that our state remains a desirable place to live, work and play. Areas for discussion include demand, reliability, resilience and affordability.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects global energy demand will increase by one-third to as much as three-quarters by 2050. Increased industrial demand and transportation electrification are key factors cited in projections for growing energy consumption in North Carolina and nationally. Federal support, like grants and credits from the Inflation Reduction Act, are driving this trend. North Carolina Executive Orders 80 and 246, as well as House Bill 951 and the resulting North Carolina Carbon Plan, have charted a course for accelerated clean energy adoption and infrastructure updates to meet new needs.
North Carolina’s largest energy provider noted in December 2023 that electricity demand is growing at an unprecedented rate, the fastest in the last three decades. Our state’s population growth will require more housing, transportation, healthcare, education and other infrastructure needs that will increase energy demand in the coming decades. Expected load growth by 2030 is now eight times higher than the expectations set in the 2022 iteration of the Carbon Plan. In the clean energy sector alone, North Carolina is attracting corporations that are drastically increasing energy demand, including internet data centers and electric vehicle companies like Apple, Meta, Vinfast and Toyota. These newcomers have already brought more than $11 billion in investments and are providing thousands of new jobs for North Carolinians across the state.
Meeting the needs of our evolving economy will require rapid capacity expansion and a diverse mix of energy resources that expands electrification and works to achieve clean energy targets. We must also examine how to reduce energy burdens, especially for low- and moderate- income (LMI) households, including those who live in older, less-efficient structures.
Over the next year, IEI will work with state and local partners to examine the changes driving the electrical grid of the future. We will research policies and investments shaping the state’s future energy profile and engage in community and economic development conversations about future energy needs and concerns. Through this process we will identify a set of policies and best practices with broad support in helping us meet our long-term energy goals.
More information will be forthcoming. In the interim, please address any questions to:
