HOUSTON, March 20 (Reuters) - U.S. public utility

commissions and power firms will need to accelerate the

construction of power capacity and infrastructure to meet

growing demand from new data centers and increased

electrification, executives and regulators said on Wednesday.

The number of data centers is increasing rapidly to support

artificial intelligence, crypto mining and the increasingly

digital global economy.

The rapid deployment of artificial intelligence throughout

the economy has pushed power demand beyond many utility

forecasts, said Williams Companies ( WMB ) CEO Alan Armstrong on

Wednesday.

"It's an emerging issue in that past two or three months

that has caught the industry by surprise," he said.

Power demand from data centers will grow to 30 gigawatts by

2030 from 10 gigawatts in 2022, Armstrong said.

In some cases, utilities are actually turning away data

center customers, unsure if they can handle the demand , said

Michele Wheeler, vice president of regulator and political

affairs for power giant NextEra Energy.

"As an industry, we like to plan and plan and plan and plan

and then we'll execute. We don't have that kind of time if we're

going to actually make the most of this transition opportunity,"

she said.

The time frame to build new infrastructure is much faster

than the industry is used to, said Jimmy Glotfelty, Commissioner

of the Texas Public Utility Commission.

The expansion of power infrastructure, particularly of new

transmission, represents one of the biggest pinch points for the

power sector, Glotfelty said.

"It takes a long time to make decisions and to build

things, and we have not kept up our rules and time lines that

are needed to succeed," Glotfelty said.

Glotfelty said that he was optimistic that Texas would be

able to meet demand growth, but that the grid operator ERCOT,

the commission and lawmakers would have to move quickly to do

it.

"We're going to have to do a better job at ERCOT, at the

Commission, at the legislature to address issues sooner, looking

forward, before they become a liability problems," he said.

In Texas, the electrification of the oil industry is adding

to rising power demand from data centers and a boom in

crypto-mining. Using power reduces emissions at oilfields and

can cut costs. New power infrastructure is urgently needed in

regions such as the top U.S. oilfield, the Permian basin.

"Poles and wires are a huge need in Texas," said Danny

Wesson, chief operating officer of Midland, Texas-based shale

firm Diamondback Energy ( FANG ), speaking at an energy conference in

Houston.

"We've seen some tight bottlenecks in trying to connect our

operations to the grid," he said.

Diamondback now running about 95% of its field on the grid,

versus 60% a few years ago, while half of its oil well

completion operations and roughly 75% of its drilling equipment

are running on grid power, Wesson said.