AI data centers are expanding at a historic rate, and the scale of this growth is placing unprecedented stress on regional power grids. Across the United States, utilities are reporting delayed interconnection queues, overloaded substations, and an accelerating mismatch between supply and demand. Although much of the public narrative focuses on the impact on residential ratepayers, commercial buildings and public institutions are increasingly affected. These impacts include constrained capacity, extended timelines for electrical upgrades, and a rising likelihood of higher electricity costs. In regions where data center development is especially concentrated, these challenges are no longer hypothetical; they are measurable and quickly intensifying.
Why Data Center Growth Puts Pressure on Commercial Buildings and Public Institutions
AI data centers consume extraordinary amounts of power, often 200 megawatts or more per site, roughly equivalent to the electricity needs of a small city. States experiencing the rapid growth of data centers coming online are also noting that the transmission and distribution infrastructure built decades ago cannot support current load profiles, let alone the projected demand expected over the next 5–10 years.
The impact is already visible.
In 2023, data centers in Virginia (the largest data center market in the US) consumed 33.85 million megawatt-hours (MWh)—more than 25% of the state’s total electricity use. Globally, the sector is expected to expand 19–22% annually through 2030, potentially requiring 219 gigawatts (GW) of power capacity. For comparison, the current global demand is roughly 60 GW, based on analysis from McKinsey & Company.
This level of growth creates real constraints for every other entity connected to shared electrical infrastructure and introduces operational risks for commercial buildings and public-sector facilities.
As grid conditions tighten, several impacts become increasingly common:
For public institutions—such as schools, universities, municipal buildings, and healthcare facilities—these risks are often amplified. Many operate with fixed annual budgets, rely on consistent energy costs, and maintain mission-critical operations that cannot tolerate outages, voltage instability, or delays in service upgrades.
The good news? Facilities have powerful ways to adapt to a strained grid, and it starts with an energy-efficiency retrofit project. While these projects can include energy conservation measures (ECMs) such as common building elements like HVAC, controls, and building automation (e.g., windows and insulation), in this article, we will focus on one of the more prolific ECMs: commercial lighting.
Why? Because commercial lighting is the fastest and most immediate lever you can pull to reduce a building’s electrical load and start protecting it from capacity constraints.
Reduce Load Immediately with an LED Lighting Upgrade
Lighting accounts for roughly 17% of a commercial building’s electricity use, making it one of the largest controllable loads in any facility. More importantly, lighting upgrades do not require new grid capacity. Instead, they free existing capacity, opening electrical headroom for mission-critical or load-intensive systems that may require expansion in the future.
LED retrofits, advanced lighting controls, and modern scheduling strategies can reduce lighting-related energy use by 20–60%, depending on the baseline technology. These reductions provide facilities with valuable flexibility, especially as utilities signal reduced availability for new service connections or expansion of existing service.
Why lighting is the first and best step:
Lighting improvements represent one of the few efficiency measures that remain fully controllable in a constrained grid environment.
What This Means for Energy Service Companies and Energy Retrofit Companies
In regions experiencing significant growth in data centers, energy service companies (ESCOs) and energy retrofit companies are well-positioned to play a critical role. Facility decision-makers, both commercial and public-sector, will increasingly depend on ESCOs and energy retrofit companies to help reduce electrical load quickly, manage risk, and complete projects before utility or capacity constraints slow progress. Speed, precision, and the ability to move from lighting audit to installation efficiently will become essential differentiators in service offerings.
In addition, many buildings completed LED lighting upgrades between 2010 and 2017. These early-generation LEDs, though advanced at the time, are now significantly less efficient than modern systems. A typical LED troffer installed in 2015 drew approximately 55 watts while producing 4,000 lumens. Retrofit kits can achieve the same light output at 33 watts. This reduction translates directly into lower energy consumption, reduced demand charges, and greater electrical capacity for other systems. A recent blog breaks down the economics of LED-to-LED retrofit projects and shows why a second upgrade often can achieve far more savings than most facility teams expect.
The Importance of Speed
In a tightening grid environment, project velocity becomes a strategic advantage. The faster a facility can move from early-stage planning and auditing to actual installation, the better positioned it will be to stay ahead of future capacity limitations.
SnapCount supports this acceleration by enabling ESCOs and energy retrofit teams to streamline every stage of an energy retrofit project, including LED lighting upgrades. SnapCount is an energy services platform that accelerates the entire turnkey project lifecycle from investment-grade audit to project development and deployment in a fraction of the time required with traditional paper and Excel-based methods.
This speed ensures that facilities can deploy and implement essential load-reduction projects before constraints intensify or approval windows shrink.
A Lighting-First Strategy for a Tighter Grid
As demand rises and infrastructure strains under rapid data center growth, both commercial buildings and public institutions face growing risk related to capacity, cost, and reliability. Lighting efficiency projects offer an immediate, scalable, and low-risk pathway to reduce use, protect operational flexibility, and prepare facilities for a constrained grid environment. SnapCount provides the multi-ECM technology for speed, accuracy, and workflow efficiency required to move from audit to installation, ensuring building stocks remain prepared for emerging energy challenges.