The group meeting in Jefferson City faces two main questions: how much energy will be needed in the future and how to provide it, especially as aging coal-fired power plants are phased out. Coal remains the dominant energy source in Missouri.

The region’s power grid, like that elsewhere, could undergo fundamental changes in the coming years due to rising demand, driven by the increasing adoption of electric vehicles and a potential boom in huge, energy-hungry developments, including the data centers that support the computing needs of tech companies and artificial intelligence, and even cryptocurrency “mines” that together consume as much electricity as entire nations.

Taken together, the integration of these new activities into the electricity grid could result in one of the largest changes in overall electricity demand since the increasing use of air conditioning.

This has raised fears among some officials that an impending power crisis could occur.

Adding to the concern is the loss of some long-standing energy sources, including the progressive retirement of coal-fired power plants. Replacing coal with alternative energy sources is a switch that typically saves customers money and is consistent with calls for drastic reductions in the greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels that drive climate change.

Many experts believe that a sharp increase in electricity demand is not a question of whether it will happen, but of when.

“I’m quite sure that the load will definitely skyrocket in the coming years,” said Durgesh Manjure, director of resource adequacy at the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), which oversees the power grid across much of Missouri and North America.

However, he added that MISO does not expect “significant difficulties” in meeting foreseeable demand and continues to believe that the grid has sufficient capacity.

Exceptions and complications, he added, are particularly likely to arise in the event of weather-related anomalies, such as extremely hot days at atypical times – such as a 35-degree day in late September.

But there is uncertainty about what might happen in places like Missouri. Some experts worry that some predictions, such as the potential proliferation of data centers, could help secure expensive and unnecessary investments.

“I think it’s overestimated,” says Ashok Gupta, a Kansas City-based energy economist with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “We could end up in a situation where we build too much.”

According to the most recent data available from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the state has seen a decline in commercial electricity demand in recent years.

Many other states saw the same declining or static trends from 2019 to 2023. Larger jumps in commercial electricity consumption, however, were seen only in a handful of states that have become hubs for large computer facilities and data centers, such as Texas, North Dakota and Virginia.

And in Missouri, some forecasts predict only low or moderate growth in regional electricity consumption. For example, the EIA’s most recent forecast for the region predicts that electricity demand will grow by about 0.5% per year over the coming decades.

“I wouldn’t call it a rapid acceleration,” says Tyler Hodge, an economist at the EIA. Even if that forecast is revised upward in the agency’s next round of forecasts – after a year of heated discussions about AI – he doesn’t expect any dramatic changes.

“If anything, the growth rate will be somewhat higher in the coming forecast,” he said.

Given this uncertainty, decisions about planning for the future come with massive implications – from the costs imposed on captive utility customers for new investments to the impact on the climate.

At least some state officials and utilities like Ameren want to focus on new gas-fired power plants.

“Ameren is experiencing a significant capacity shortage. … The picture is not optimistic and is a cause for concern,” said Kayla Hahn, chair of the Missouri Public Service Commission, which regulates the state’s monopoly utilities, at a June meeting to discuss the St. Louis-based company’s efforts to close its coal-fired Rush Island Energy Center.

At the meeting, Hahn urged the company to unusually expand natural gas production and even criticized Ameren for not pursuing such projects earlier.

But some question whether Missouri’s power grid should switch to gas generation at all – especially before more cost-effective strategies such as maximizing energy efficiency or gradually building smaller renewable energy generation and storage projects are exhausted.

In addition to the high cost of new gas-fired power plants, sceptics also point out that gas can have reliability issues and price volatility, as demonstrated by the 2021 winter storm Uri, which triggered widespread power outages and astronomical cost spikes. Further criticism concerns the prospect of making new investments in a fossil fuel like gas, even if it is less carbon-intensive than coal.

Meanwhile, some point out that it’s not just about keeping the lights on, but also about providing energy attractive enough to attract new businesses to the state. And many large companies – especially those with carbon reduction goals, including data center giants like Amazon, Google and Meta — are looking for renewable energy for ecological and economic reasons.

“That’s what companies want – they want clean energy,” said James Owen, executive director of Renew Missouri, a nonprofit that advocates for greater use of renewable energy in Missouri, which currently burns more coal than any other state except Texas.

Owen asks whether the state will look for ways to change its grid to support the pursuit of clean energy – “or whether it will say, ‘Sorry, we’re closed.’”