In this article, we take a look at the 7 Utility Stocks Riding the 2026 “Reliability Shock”.
The artificial intelligence buildout is turning electricity reliability into a boardroom issue. The International Energy Agency said global data-center electricity consumption is projected to more than double to about 945 terawatt-hours by 2030, with demand growing around 15% annually from 2024 to 2030, more than four times faster than electricity consumption from other sectors. In the United States, the EIA expects power consumption to rise from a record 4,195 billion kilowatt-hours in 2025 to 4,244 billion kWh in 2026 and 4,381 billion kWh in 2027, as data centers, electrification, and industrial activity lift load growth after years of relatively flat demand.
The bottleneck is not just total generation. AI campuses need a large, around-the-clock electricity supply, and that has pushed investors to focus on utilities with nuclear plants, gas-fired generation, transmission expansion plans, and service territories exposed to data-center clusters. Reuters recently noted that U.S. electricity prices are rising as AI and data-center expansion strain the grid, while Grid Strategies estimated that national load-growth forecasts have climbed to 166 GW by 2030, a sixfold increase from what utilities expected in 2022. In that environment, reliable power is no longer a background utility function. It is becoming a scarce infrastructure asset.
Hut 8’s Vega Data Center. Photo from Hut 8 Corp
Methodology
For our list, we selected utility and power-generation stocks with clear exposure to the 2026 electricity-demand surge tied to AI data centers and other large-load customers. We limited our final selection to companies with the highest upside potential that have recently reported noteworthy developments likely to impact investor sentiment.
Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 498.7% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 303 percentage points (see more details here).
7. The Southern Company (NYSE:SO)
The Southern Company (NYSE:SO) is one of the utility stocks riding the 2026 “Reliability Shock.”
On April 30, 2026, The Southern Company (NYSE:SO) reported first-quarter results showing how quickly data-center load is becoming part of its growth story. The company said adjusted earnings rose to $1.32 per share from $1.23 a year earlier, while operating revenue increased 8.0% to $8.4 billion. Reuters said Southern beat first-quarter profit estimates as higher power demand lifted results, with commercial kilowatt-hour sales up 4.2% and industrial sales up 1.5%.
The data center detail makes the story more directly tied to reliability demand. Utility Dive reported on May 1 that data centers used 42% more power across Southern’s utilities than in the first quarter of 2025, while the company had 28 large-load projects totaling 11 GW under contract. That follows Southern’s February update, when Reuters reported that the company lifted its 2026-2030 capital spending plan to about $81 billion and had contracted 10 GW of large-load customers, including Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Compass Datacenters.
The Southern Company (NYSE:SO) is an Atlanta-based utility holding company serving electric and natural gas customers across the Southeast and beyond.
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