Blog Post | 05.06.2026 | 5 min read | Debashis Bose
The Hitachi Energy Grid Pulse examines how rising electricity demand, large-load growth, and shifting resource mixes are reshaping the North American power system. This edition highlights key trends from October 2025 to March 2026, including ERCOT demand growth, solar-led capacity additions, and the expanding role of battery storage.
Global electrification is expected to account for more than 50% of total energy demand, up from about 20% today.1 Across North America, the aging power system is already feeling that pressure as energy consumption rises rapidly, driven by large new loads such as data centers, hydrogen production, industrial electrification, and electric vehicle charging.
To address the most urgent energy challenges of our time and help ensure abundant, secure, affordable, and sustainable power for current and future generations, we must take a clear-eyed look at how the grid is evolving.
To help inform that view, we created The Hitachi Energy Grid Pulse, an executive snapshot of the forces reshaping the North American power system, from accelerating large-load growth and rising regional demand to a resource mix increasingly defined by solar, storage, and other flexible capacity. This edition covers the period from October 2025 through March 2026.
Over the past several years, the United States and Canada have experienced strong growth in electricity demand, driven largely by the rapid expansion of large new loads, primarily data centers. While this surge began in Northern Virginia, a long-established data center hub, growth is now spreading across Texas, Arizona, Oregon, Ohio, and Georgia, with many other states also gaining momentum.
From October 2025 through March 2026, energy demand across the lower 48 states rose by approximately 2% compared with the same period a year earlier. In ERCOT, total load growth over the same period exceeded 9%, underscoring the outsized impact of large-load expansion in the region.
ERCOT recorded the highest energy demand among major regions from October 2025 through March 2026. Much of that growth is tied to rising data center demand, particularly in Texas. More broadly, regional energy demand patterns remained relatively consistent with the same period a year earlier.
Grid expansion remained strong from October 2025 through March 2026. North America added approximately 28.4 GW of new resources from October 2025 through March 2026, including about 27.9 GW in the U.S. Solar led new U.S. capacity additions, reinforcing the broader shift toward renewable and storage resources.
Resource additions in the U.S. by type from October 2025 through March 2026 were:
Among Independent System Operators (ISOs), ERCOT accounted for the largest share of new resource additions from October 2025 through March 2026, at 24% (6.8 GW), followed closely by Midcontinent ISO at 23% (6.4 GW) and CAISO at 11% (3.1 GW). During the same period a year earlier, MISO added slightly more capacity than ERCOT.
At the state level, we saw Texas add roughly 2.9 GW of battery energy storage systems and solar, together accounting for the majority of the state’s new capacity.
When comparing U.S. states, Texas led capacity additions during the same period a year earlier, when it added about 7.2 GW, including roughly 4 GW of solar.
Six states, including Texas, accounted for more than half of all U.S. capacity additions from October 2025 through March 2026. The other leading states were:
Oklahoma was the only state in this top-six group that was not among the leaders during the same period a year earlier. Texas, California, Arizona, Florida, and Illinois ranked among the top states in both periods.
Together, the top six states added less capacity from October 2025 to March 2026 (about 14.9 GW) than they did during the same period a year earlier (about 18.3 GW).
Through March 2026, wind and solar resources accounted for about 344 GW of installed capacity, or roughly 24% of total U.S. available capacity—the highest share on record. Yet from October 2025 through March 2026, those resources supplied just 18% of total energy generation, reflecting the intermittent nature of their output.
Taken together, solar, wind, and battery energy storage systems accounted for 85% of all capacity additions from October 2025 through March 2026.
Battery deployment also continued to accelerate. Through March 2026, installed battery capacity in the U.S. reached approximately 50 GW, up 61% from 31 GW in March 2025.
Nuclear resources accounted for about 57 GW of total available U.S. capacity and generated 19% of total energy as of March 2026, highlighting their continued role in supporting grid reliability.
The Hitachi Energy Grid Pulse is built using data from Hitachi Energy’s Market Insights software solution, currently known as Velocity Suite, an all-in-one cloud-native energy data and analytics solution that allows market participants to access, analyze, and visualize North American energy market data with confidence. Drawing on more than 30 years of curated history, geospatial precision, integrated data relationships, publicly available information from more than 3,000 sources, and Hitachi Energy’s proprietary research, Velocity Suite software provides the foundation for this analysis.
Hitachi Energy’s energy market advisors then interpret the data through an independent, unbiased market lens to help energy leaders and members of the media better understand system trends, evaluate risks, and make more informed investment and operational decisions.
Stay tuned for the next edition publishing soon.
