The Utilities Analyst Who Says the Data Center Demand Story Doesn't Add Up

Odd Lots

Utilities analysts are having a moment as the energy sector gets a boost from AI. With an extra 94 gigawatts forecast to be needed by 2030 to power all these new data centers, energy investment has become a hot play as investors take a "picks and shovels" approach. But one long-time analyst says that — from a utilities perspective — we're already set to overbuild capacity by twice as much as is needed. On this episode, Andy DeVries, co-head of investment grade credit and head of utilities and power at CreditSights, talks to us about the math behind his infrastructure overbuild analysis, who has been making money (so far) from the data center boom, and what we already see playing out in the credit markets.

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Utilities analysts are having a moment as the energy sector gets a boost from AI. With an extra 94 gigawatts forecast to be needed by 2030 to power all these new data centers, energy investment has become a hot play as investors take a "picks and shovels" approach. But one long-time analyst says that — from a utilities perspective — we're already set to overbuild capacity by twice as much as is needed. On this episode, Andy DeVries, co-head of investment grade credit and head of utilities and power at CreditSights, talks to us about the math behind his infrastructure overbuild analysis, who has been making money (so far) from the data center boom, and what we already see playing out in the credit markets.

Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter
Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

2026-02-02 46 min Transcript
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