A new forecast of U.S. data center growth raises the prospect of enormous environmental and financial harm. Fortunately, a new movement has emerged to enact guardrails.

From 2015 to 2024, average retail electricity prices decreased by 3.5% for every doubling of data center capacity, new research finds.

A base model anticipates U.S. data center demand of about 118 GW by 2030. As potential demand and proposed data center size both grow, so does the complexity in forecasting,…