Council data-centre and hydrogen load inputs (draft Ninth Power Plan)

Period

2024–2050

One row is

Input workbook x sheet x trajectory x technology x Council zone or regional series x year

Built from source rows of

trajectory x year (region, 2024-2046); trajectory x technology x utility x year (2024-2030)

Evidence and method

modeled · directIncremental annual energy the Council forecasts for new data centres and chip fabrication plants, an input to its draft Ninth Plan demand forecast. The workbook's own notes say "Load values are annual energy (aMW)" and "Incremental (new) growth forecast, does not include existing tech loads" (text boxes on sheets '20y regional forecasts' and 'Forecast pathways'); aMW is recorded here in the dictionary unit MWa, and there is no peak. Three trajectories, low, mid ("BASE") and high: Appendix F (PDF page 32) states the medium input was used for the Late Growth and Mixed Bag futures, the high input for High Growth and Early Growth, and the low input for Low Growth. They are never averaged or summed. The region runs 2024-2046 ("Post 2030 values are trended upwards at flat rates"); by utility the workbook runs 2024-2030, split into data centres only, chip fabs only and all technologies, under the Council's own utility labels (BPA, PGE, PAC, Chelan, Douglas, Grant, Idaho, NWMT), which are not the atlas frame or a service territory. A blank cell is not published, never zero; the Council's Total column is its own, never a sum made here. This input is not the DC_Load column of the area workbooks, which is the forecast model's output. The plan is draft 2026-3, open for comment through October 16, 2026.

Origin

Draft Ninth Northwest Power Plan, data-centre load forecast workbook 9th Plan data center forecast final 03.16.2025.xlsx ("9th Power Plan Tech Load Forecast"; READ ME!E14: "Last updated: March 16, 2025 (additional notes added in September 2026 for clarity)"): incremental data-centre and chip-fab annual energy in aMW, low, mid and high trajectories, for the region 2024-2046 and by utility 2024-2030 ↗Source notice and licenceLicence: No reuse grant and no prohibition stated: the Council's Terms & Conditions page says only that website content is information and is not legal or professional advice; the site footer carries "© NW Power & Conservation Council"

Built from source rows of

trajectory x year (Northwest, 2027-2050); trajectory x hydrogen zone x year (2027-2046)

Evidence and method

modeled · directElectric load the Council forecasts for producing hydrogen in the Northwest, an input to its draft Ninth Plan demand forecast, in average megawatts as the workbook heads its columns ('NW aMW', 'aMW'), recorded here in the dictionary unit MWa. Energy only: the Council models hydrogen load as curtailable and leaves it out of the peak forecast (Appendix F, PDF page 42). Two trajectories, low and high, described on the sheet 'Pathways'; never averaged or summed. The Northwest series (column J 'NW aMW', 2027-2050) is the load left after the Council's assumption that a growing share of hydrogen is imported or made without electricity (half by 2045, Appendix F PDF page 44); the zone breakouts (2027-2046) split it across the Council's own hydrogen zones (Puget North, BPA OR, BPA WA, Olympia, NWMT, Douglas; the high case adds PACW, Chelan, Grant, PGE, Tacoma, Avista, SCL and Idaho at 2.5% each "for general industrial usage"), which are not the atlas frame or a service territory. The workbook's calculation columns and background sheets are not loaded. This input is not the H2_Load column of the area workbooks. The plan is draft 2026-3, open for comment through October 16, 2026.

Origin

Draft Ninth Northwest Power Plan, hydrogen load forecast workbook Hydrogen forecast 9th Plan FINAL 04.22.2024.xlsx ("9th Power Plan Hydrogen Load Forecast"; READ ME!E14: "Last updated: April 22, 2025"): electric load for hydrogen production in aMW, low and high trajectories, for the Northwest 2027-2050 and by the Council's hydrogen zones 2027-2046 ↗Source notice and licenceLicence: No reuse grant and no prohibition stated: the Council's Terms & Conditions page says only that website content is information and is not legal or professional advice; the site footer carries "© NW Power & Conservation Council"

Edition in this release

2026-3-draft; retrieved 2026-09-29T04:58:45Z · · retrieved 2026-09-292026-3-draft; retrieved 2026-09-29T04:58:46Z · · retrieved 2026-09-29

Download

The Council's own demand-forecast folder (Tech-Data Center Loads and Hydrogen) ↗The atlas reads these workbooks and describes what they hold; it publishes no copy of them and no table of their rows. Download the files from the Council, whose folder is the published original.

• Listed without a reported value · annual energyRows with no value for this measure; published as null, never zero
  126 values
• In the source, not yet includedWhat each workbook computes its loads from, archived in the pinned file and not loaded: the hydrogen workbook's calculation columns (hydrogen mass in MMT, kilograms, kWh per kilogram, kWh, the load before the in-region share, and that share), its zone shares, and its eleven background sheets (hydrogen hub, Atlas Agro, US DOE, Washington end uses, BNEF, McKinsey, Northwest share, Montana split, two EIA SEDS extracts, population); the data-centre workbook's 'Pathway sources' sheet, which names each utility's forecast source per trajectory.
  Not computedonly the load values are read

Publisher

The Council posts supporting workbooks to the plan's public folder as the plan is developed and states no schedule for them. The data-centre workbook dates itself "Last updated: March 16, 2025 (additional notes added in September 2026 for clarity)" and the hydrogen workbook "Last updated: April 22, 2025" (each READ ME!E14).www.nwcouncil.org/energy/ninthpowerplan/technical-elements/ ↗nwcouncil.box.com/v/ninthplandemndfcastworkbooks ↗

Delay

The plan these workbooks support is a draft: Council document 2026-3, cover date August 12, 2026, published August 13, 2026 and open for public comment through October 16, 2026. Filename labels such as "final 03.16.2025" and "FINAL 04.22.2024" are the publisher's, not the plan's status.www.nwcouncil.org/reports/ninthplan/ ↗www.nwcouncil.org/energy/ninthpowerplan/ ↗

This atlas

Each workbook is pinned by its SHA-256 in the source registry: a changed byte fails acquisition rather than becoming a new edition silently, so the table changes only when a pin is reviewed and moved. No timed refresh.www.nwcouncil.org/energy/ninthpowerplan/technical-elements/ ↗

• keys.council_demand_input_unique{"distinct":1084,"rows":1084}
  Passed
• council_demand_input.rows_valid{"negative_loads":0,"not_annual_energy_in_mwa":0,"rows":1084,"unit":"MWa","unit_locators":{"data_centre":"text boxes on sheets '20y regional forecasts' (anchored at F2) and 'Forecast pathways' (anchored at N2): \"Load values are annual energy (aMW)\"","hydrogen":"column headers 'NW aMW' (sheets 'Ninth Plan forecast LOW' and 'HIGH', J3) and 'aMW' (sheets 'BA breakout LOW' J17 and 'BA breakout HIGH' R24)"},"unknown_missing_reason":0,"unknown_trajectory_or_technology":0,"value_and_reason_inconsistent":0}
  Passed

No corrections apply to this dataset in this release. Earlier editions: not available (earlier releases did not retain per-dataset edition comparisons).