U.S. coal generation is roaring. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the U.S. electric power sector consumed 15% more coal in the first half of 2025 than in the first half of 2024. Higher electricity demand and higher natural gas prices are driving the uptick. And it’s these two dynamics – along with ongoing concern about the pace in which new generation of any kind can be added to the grid – that has more and more utilities pumping the brakes on coal plant retirements.

Add Duke Energy to the long and growing list of utilities recognizing how essential their coal plants are to meeting soaring power demand. Duke Energy recently announced it plans to keep open three North Carolina coal power plants past their original retirement dates.

Duke said these extensions “reflect rising electricity demand across the Carolinas at an unprecedented pace.” Of course, Duke’s plans also reflect the Trump administration’s work to undue the Biden-era regulatory onslaught on coal generation. Now given the opportunity to evaluate the economics and need for their plants absent a crushing suite of rules designed to force closures, utilities are choosing to keep plants running.

If the Duke announcement and its recognition of soaring demand sounds familiar, it’s because utilities across the country are now confronting a startling new reality.  In Kentucky, Louisville Gas & Electric and Kentucky Utilities announced on July 29 their plans to extend the life of the Mill Creek coal power plant, citing “record-breaking economic development needs,” notably from data centers. The utilities now expect up to a 45% jump in demand in less than a decade. 

The list of announced delayed or cancelled coal plant closures is now approaching 50 plants, a remarkable reflection of how unworkable and incompatible the Biden administration’s energy and regulatory policies were with the AI moment.

Demand Keeps Rising

Driven by the data center buildout, one forecast after another sees a stunning jump in U.S. electricity demand—a jump not decades away but arriving immediately. ICF International, a leading consultancy, forecasts U.S. electricity demand growing 25% by 2030 and 78% by 2050 from 2023 levels. Another projection sees AI data centers needing 10-times as much power in five years as they do today.

Wood Mackenzie says utilities have 17 gigawatts (GW) of large demand currently under construction with another 99 GW committed. Together, these imminent sources of demand will equal 15.5% of current U.S. peak power demand.

Simply put, power demand growth and the AI revolution are lapping utilities’ ability to bring new capacity to the marketplace to meet it. The coal fleet – already highlighting its resurgent value this year – may well be the irreplaceable key to enabling the U.S. to capture the AI economic opportunity and shape how this groundbreaking technology is deployed and governed. The Trump administration certainly believes so.

In its recent AI Action Plan, the administration’s leading energy policy recommendation was to “stabilize the grid of today as much as possible,” placing a priority on efforts to, “safeguard existing assets and ensures an uninterrupted and affordable supply of power.” Existing assets can be read but one way: the coal fleet. And these essential plants are already playing an outsized role in meeting new demand and shielding consumers from rising electricity prices.