After decades of flat or declining electricity demand, the United States is in an energy demand boom. Recent data suggests power consumption nationwide will increase by at least 38 gigawatts (GW) between now and 2028. That’s the equivalent of adding another California to the nation’s power grid.

At the same time, power producers plan to retire 115 GW of always-available, baseload generation by 2034 – coal, natural gas and nuclear – and the replacement generation comes largely from low or intermittent capacity resources – solar and wind.