What Communities Should Know About Power, the Grid and Local Energy
Key Points
The bigger opportunity is to turn new electricity demand into new local investment. AI infrastructure could help catalyze energy projects that provide value beyond the boundaries of the data-center campus.Artificial intelligence may live in the cloud, but the infrastructure powering it is very physical.
AI data centers are becoming a major source of electricity demand in California. State energy planners are now factoring data-center growth into long-term grid forecasts.
Power availability could shape where future AI infrastructure gets built. New substations, transmission, generation and other grid upgrades can take years to plan and complete.
Communities have a stake in how this growth is powered. Local leaders should understand electricity demand, infrastructure costs, water use, backup generation and the long-term benefits a project may bring.
Community acceptance is becoming part of the development equation. Data-center developers increasingly need to address local concerns about energy, land use, infrastructure and economic impact.
Local solar, battery storage and distributed energy could become part of the solution. These resources won’t replace the utility-scale power required by large data centers, but they can complement grid investments and create more local participation.
The Solar Harmonic Framework™ connects AI growth with community energy investment. The goal is to explore how utilities, data centers, businesses, property owners and municipalities can participate in a broader local energy strategy.
Behind every AI model are data centers containing enormous amounts of computing equipment—and those facilities require electricity.
A lot of it.
That is making California one of the most important battlegrounds in America’s emerging AI energy economy.
According to the California Energy Commission, California has more than 200 active data centers. In early 2026, they represented approximately 1,000 megawatts of peak electricity demand.
The Commission projects that data-center demand could reach approximately 4,500 MW by 2040.
For California communities, utilities and policymakers, this raises an important question:
How should California power the next generation of AI infrastructure while protecting reliability, managing costs and creating meaningful benefits for the communities where that infrastructure is built?
The answer could shape California’s energy system for decades.
AI Is Becoming an Energy Story
Most conversations about artificial intelligence focus on software, semiconductors and computing.
But AI is increasingly becoming an electricity infrastructure story.
Training and operating advanced AI systems requires enormous computing capacity. That computing occurs inside increasingly large data centers.
And electricity infrastructure doesn’t necessarily develop at the same speed as computing technology.
Power plants, transmission lines and substations can require years of planning, permitting and construction.
As a result, access to electricity is becoming one of the most important considerations in determining where new data centers can be developed.
California Is Already Planning for Data-Center Growth
The scale of potential demand is significant enough that California’s energy planners have begun specifically incorporating data centers into statewide electricity-demand forecasting.
The California Energy Commission uses information from utility energization requests to help estimate future data-center electricity demand.
That is an important development.
It means AI infrastructure is no longer simply a technology-sector issue.
It is becoming part of California’s long-term energy planning.
The Numbers Are Large—and Uncertain
Not every proposed data center will ultimately be constructed.
California energy planners acknowledge significant uncertainty surrounding:
- How many projects will actually move forward
- When they will be completed
- Their ultimate electricity requirements
- Future market conditions
- The number of new utility applications
That uncertainty is important.
Communities shouldn’t assume every announced megawatt will materialize.
But they also shouldn’t ignore the direction of travel.
AI is creating a potentially significant new source of electricity demand.
What Happens When a Data Center Comes to Your Community?
For local governments, a proposed data center can represent substantial economic development.
Potential benefits may include:
- Major capital investment
- Construction employment
- Permanent employment
- Property and other tax revenue
- Infrastructure investment
- Local contracting
- Economic-development opportunities
But communities should also understand the infrastructure required to support the project.
Questions should include:
How much electricity will the project require at full buildout?
Where will that electricity come from?
What new substations, transmission or distribution infrastructure will be necessary?
Who will pay for those investments?
How does the project affect long-term grid planning?
What are the project’s water requirements?
What backup generation will it use?
And perhaps most importantly:
What long-term benefits will the surrounding community receive?
Community Acceptance Is Becoming Important
The growth of data centers is beginning to generate debate in communities around the country.
Residents are asking questions about electricity, water, noise, land use, backup generators and economic benefits.
That doesn’t mean communities are necessarily opposed to AI infrastructure.
It means people want to understand the tradeoffs.
For developers, this creates a new reality:
Community engagement may become nearly as important as access to land, fiber and electricity.
The strongest projects may therefore be those capable of demonstrating that the community receives meaningful benefits from hosting them.
Could Energy Become One of Those Benefits?
This is where California has an interesting opportunity.
Look around almost any California city and you’ll find substantial amounts of potentially useful energy real estate:
Warehouse rooftops.
Shopping centers.
Manufacturing facilities.
Schools.
Municipal buildings.
Parking lots.
Industrial properties.
Brownfields.
Many of these properties may potentially support solar generation, battery storage or other distributed-energy resources.
The arrival of a large new electricity consumer could become a catalyst for developing some of those resources.
The Solar Harmonic Framework™
Solar Harmonics developed the Solar Harmonic Framework™ around this concept.
The framework asks a straightforward question:
Can communities hosting major new AI electricity demand become participants in the energy infrastructure developed to support that growth?
Instead of thinking only about:
Utility → Data Center
consider a broader ecosystem:
Utility + Data Center + Community + Local Businesses + Distributed Energy
Potential resources could include:
- Commercial rooftop solar
- Battery energy storage
- Solar parking canopies
- Municipal solar
- Industrial energy projects
- Microgrids
- Demand flexibility
- Other distributed-energy resources
These resources cannot simply replace the utility-scale generation and transmission required by hyperscale data centers.
Nor will every property or project make economic or technical sense.
But distributed resources could potentially complement larger grid investments while creating additional local economic participation.
Imagine a Community Energy Initiative
Consider a hypothetical California city preparing for significant new data-center development.
Instead of evaluating only the data-center property, the city could work with utilities, developers and energy partners to identify distributed-energy opportunities throughout the surrounding community.
Commercial and industrial property owners could voluntarily participate.
Suitable rooftops and parking areas could be evaluated.
Battery-storage opportunities could be identified.
Municipal facilities could be analyzed.
Utilities could determine where distributed resources provide meaningful grid value.
The data-center developer could explore whether participation supports its sustainability, community-benefit or energy objectives.
The result wouldn’t be a single solar project.
It would be a coordinated community energy strategy associated with AI growth.
Turning Electricity Demand Into Local Investment
That changes the economic-development equation.
The traditional question is:
How much electricity will this data center consume?
A more productive question may be:
How much new energy investment could this data center help catalyze?
That investment could potentially extend beyond the walls of the data center.
Commercial property owners could participate.
Local contractors could participate.
Municipalities could participate.
Utilities could gain additional energy resources where appropriate.
Communities could gain cleaner and potentially more resilient infrastructure.
And data-center developers could demonstrate a tangible connection between AI investment and community energy development.
California Could Lead
California helped pioneer the modern technology economy.
It also helped pioneer distributed solar, battery storage and clean-energy policy.
AI now presents an opportunity to bring those two histories together.
The state doesn’t have to choose between technological growth and energy transformation.
It can explore models that connect them.
The Bigger Question
Artificial intelligence will require significant new physical infrastructure.
Some of that infrastructure will be built in California.
The question for policymakers, utilities, developers and communities isn’t simply whether AI data centers should exist.
The more important question is:
How do we design their relationship with California’s electricity system and the communities that host them?
If communities are simply asked to accommodate massive new electricity loads, opposition may grow.
If communities can participate economically in the energy transformation surrounding those loads, the conversation changes.
AI needs energy.
California needs investment in its energy infrastructure.
And communities want to participate in the economic opportunities created around them.
Those interests don’t necessarily have to conflict.
Under the right circumstances, they could reinforce each other.
That’s the opportunity behind the Solar Harmonic Framework™.
Powering AI. Empowering Communities.
Solar Harmonics Strategic Energy
