While much of the national conversation on grid modernization focuses on urban centers, a quiet crisis is unfolding across rural America. The electrical infrastructure that serves over 42 million people and covers 56% of the nation's landmass is aging, unreliable, and increasingly unable to meet the demands of the 21st century. Rural communities experience power outages that are two to three times more frequent and longer in duration than their urban counterparts, exacting a heavy economic and social toll. This is the forgotten grid, and its fragility represents a significant threat to our national resilience and economic equity.

Now, a new and powerful force is set to exacerbate this crisis to a breaking point: the explosive growth of data centers. These massive, power-hungry facilities, driven by the AI revolution, are increasingly being sited in rural areas, drawn by cheap land and low-cost power. This influx of demand is straining already-weak local grids, driving up electricity rates for residential customers, and threatening to leave rural communities further behind.

The electrical grid in rural America is a patchwork of systems operated primarily by 832 non-profit rural electric cooperatives. These cooperatives have a proud history of bringing power to areas that investor-owned utilities deemed unprofitable. However, they now face a monumental challenge. The infrastructure they manage is old and failing. Over 70% of power transformers are 25 years or older. 60% of circuit breakers are 30 years or older. 70% of transmission lines are 25 years or older.

This aging infrastructure is brittle and highly susceptible to disruption, particularly from the increasingly severe weather events driven by climate change. In 2024, U.S. electricity customers experienced an average of 11 hours of power interruptions, nearly double the annual average, largely due to hurricanes and other major weather events. For rural customers, who are often at the end of long, exposed distribution lines, the reality is far worse.

The age of Artificial Intelligence has unleashed an unprecedented demand for data processing and storage. This has led to a boom in the construction of data centers, facilities that can consume as much electricity as a small city. Their collective power consumption is projected to grow from 4.4% of total U.S. demand in 2023 to nearly 12% by 2030.

To meet this demand, data center developers are increasingly turning to rural areas. The problem is that the local grids in these areas were never designed to handle such massive loads. In areas near new data centers, wholesale electricity costs have increased by as much as 267% over the past five years. Utilities are often forced to pass on the multi-billion-dollar cost of new transmission lines and substations to their entire customer base, meaning residential ratepayers are subsidizing the growth of the data center industry.

The massive and often variable power draws of data centers create new challenges for grid operators. A sudden loss of a 1,500 MW data center load can shock the grid with a surplus of generation equivalent to a large nuclear power plant unexpectedly coming online, creating instability. To meet the surging demand, utilities in states like Virginia, Georgia, and Michigan are being forced to keep aging, inefficient, and expensive coal and gas plants online longer than planned, undermining climate goals.

There is a better way. Instead of trying to patch and prop up a centralized grid model that is fundamentally broken, we must empower rural communities to build their own resilient energy future. The key to this future is the community microgrid. A microgrid is a localized electrical grid that can disconnect from the main grid and operate autonomously. When powered by a combination of local renewable energy sources and battery energy storage, a microgrid can provide clean, reliable, and affordable power to a community, even when the main grid goes down. The Inflation Reduction Act has allocated $9.7 billion in funding specifically for rural electric cooperatives to make this transition.

Data centers do not have to be a liability for rural communities. If integrated thoughtfully, they can be a catalyst for grid modernization. Instead of simply connecting to the existing grid and socializing the costs of upgrades, data centers should be required to bring their own power. By co-locating new data centers with large-scale solar and battery storage projects, they can become self-sufficient microgrids that protect residential ratepayers, ensure clean energy sourcing, and add resilient generation assets to the surrounding community.

The forgotten grid of rural America is at a crossroads. The status quo of aging infrastructure and unreliable power is no longer tenable. We call on policymakers, regulators, and rural electric cooperatives to prioritize federal funding for community microgrids, reform utility regulation to require data centers to pay the full cost of their grid infrastructure, and streamline interconnection for decentralized energy. By embracing the microgrid model, we can transform the rural grid from a liability into a national asset.