- energy
- data-source
The Energy Information Administration is the independent statistical arm of the U.S. Department of Energy. It publishes the authoritative public numbers on energy — generation, fuel mix, prices, and, through survey forms like EIA-861, the sales and customer counts of individual electric utilities.
EIA data is the platform's neutral baseline for the energy backdrop of a site: it establishes a utility's existing load and customer base as [reference] facts, against which the demand pressure of a new hyperscale campus can be measured. Because it is survey-based and utility-level, EIA is how an outside analyst estimates what share of a utility's growth a single data center represents — a framing that a company like AEP or the PJM load forecast can then corroborate or complicate.