Energy Expansion and the Economics of Constraint: How rising demand, infrastructure limits and resource pressure are reshaping the investment opportunity

Energy investment opportunities are increasingly shaped by constraints on power, grids, water and infrastructure rather than by a simple choice between traditional and renewable energy.

• The IEA's central case projects global data-center electricity consumption to rise from 485 TWh in 2025 to 950 TWh in 2030, while Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory counted more than 2,060 GW of proposed generation and storage seeking U.S. grid connection at the end of 2025.
• Demand forecasts are accelerating faster than infrastructure can be built: NERC's projected 10-year increase in North American summer peak demand rose from about 55 GW in 2022 to 80 GW in 2023, 132 GW in 2024 and 224 GW in 2025.
• The median U.S. project built in 2025 took approximately five years from interconnection request to commercial operation, versus three years in 2015 and less than two years in 2008; in Texas, data centers could represent roughly 25 GW of large-load demand by 2035.
• Existing assets offer a parallel opportunity: the U.S. power sector has historically been utilized only about 45% of the time, while reducing conversion losses, shifting flexible loads and improving asset productivity can increase usable capacity.
• Energy security remains central: the Strait of Hormuz carried roughly 20 million barrels of crude oil and petroleum products per day, while Brent futures rose from near $61 per barrel at the start of 2026 to $118 at the end of the first quarter.
• Physical and social constraints can delay supply, with Data Center Watch identifying $64 billion of U.S. data-center projects blocked or delayed between May 2024 and March 2025 and roughly $198 billion facing delays or blocks in the first half of 2026.

Takeaway: Investors should focus less on forecasting the exact energy mix or AI-demand path and more on bottom-up businesses that improve efficiency, reliability and resource productivity, while assessing power, water, grid access, regulation, resilience and valuation.