Inside National Grid’s $1.75 billion bet on Joulent

National Grid's commercial arm has invested $1.75 billion for a 35% stake in Joulent, a company that builds dedicated power plants for AI data centers. Joulent's first project, called Kilby, is a West Texas gas-fired power plant built with Chevron that will send 2.67 gigawatts of electricity directly to a data center under a 20-year contract with Microsoft. The company plans to build similar large gas plants, paired with batteries and eventually some solar, at other sites around the country, aiming for its first power by 2028.

This is part of a broader trend: rather than wait years to connect new data centers to the existing power grid, companies are building power plants right next to them. Joulent's plants will mostly run on gas, with a grid connection added mainly for backup and to send extra power out when the data center isn't using much.

For homeowners, this doesn't affect your house directly, but it matters for context. Deals like this show how much new electricity demand from AI data centers is reshaping the power industry, with companies choosing to build their own gas plants rather than compete for space on the shared grid. That competition for power, equipment, and skilled labor is part of why electricity costs and grid strain have become bigger topics nationally. It's also a reminder that heavy reliance on gas for these new mega-projects runs counter to broader efforts to cut carbon emissions from the power sector.