Technology and Science15 September, 20263 min read
Duke Energy CEO Harry Sideris Says Data Centers’ Price Claims Are Misinformation
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Abbott orders penalties for data centers failing water usage surveys in Texas. Researchers warn rising data center energy demand could push Iowa toward wind and solar.
Cost, capacity, and bills
Duke Energy CEO and president Harry Sideris told Callie Patteson in Washington Examiner’s D.C. offices that the narrative that data centers will inflate prices is “misinformation and misunderstandings.” The Washington Examiner said Duke Energy provides electricity to more than 8 million customers across six states, and that it has at least eight gigawatts’ worth of data center capacity in its queue to connect to the grid.
Sideris said Duke Energy is requiring data center projects to pay for all the infrastructure needed for their energy consumption, provide proof of deposits, and sign long-term contracts with termination clauses that don’t allow for stranded assets. He estimated that for every gigawatt of data centers added to its portfolio, it could provide $1 billion in savings for the life of that contract to Duke customers, and he said “Even from day one, they’re paying the infrastructure costs up front if needed for the transmission interconnections.”
Researchers warn of demand
In Iowa, nearly 200 researchers and faculty said the state is at a “fork in the road” as electricity demand rises from the proliferation of data centers, according to the 2026 Iowa Climate Statement released Tuesday. Jacqueline Dowling, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Iowa, said, “Iowa may see over a 30% increase in peak electricity load in the next decade,” and she said it is “like adding another major metro area's worth of power demand.”
Dave Courard-Hauri, an environmental science and sustainability professor at Drake University, said the question for Iowa is whether utilities and data center developers continue a path that has made the state a renewable leader or return to fossil plants with “climate and health risks as well as price volatility.” The Iowa Climate Statement was endorsed by 186 researchers and educators in climate and climate-impacted fields from 29 colleges and universities located in every part of Iowa, and Courard-Hauri warned that “The more greenhouse gas we emit over the next 30 years, the greater the impacts we will see.”
Texas penalties and local pushback
In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott directed the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) to impose penalties on data centers that fail to complete a water usage survey, saying data centers and other major water users “appear to have committed civil and criminal violations by failing to provide TWDB with information about [their] water usage.”
Abbott said survey responses covering 2025 were due in March and that noncompliant data centers could face a Class C misdemeanor and become “ineligible to obtain permits, permit amendments, or permit renewals” from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ).
In Philadelphia, TechCrunch reported that Philly Thrive board president Sonya Sanders said at a rally on Monday at Philadelphia’s City Hall, “We don’t want data centers,” adding, “We don’t want the pollution, we don’t want the noise, and we know they’re not going to bring us more jobs.”
The TechCrunch report also quoted Clean Air Council attorney Annie Fox saying a typical data center planned in Pennsylvania has “hundreds of diesel engines that spew air pollution,” and she warned, “Fossil fuel-hungry data centers will worsen climate change, making those heatwaves more frequent and severe.”