Here in Nevada, (Warran Buffet owned) NV Energy already has approval for a "Demand Charge" that will increase rates for everyone, and further reduce the ridiculously low amount of money that consumers get for selling their excess solar power back to the grid.
The regulators didn't even resist, but there has now been so much backlash that they're finally scheduling public hearings after the fact. The announcement doesn't even mention the Demand Charge by name, and many consumers aren't even aware they they're about to be screwed.
One of the more obscene things about this new charge is that people with PV arrays will pay a fee for demanding more power from their own grid-tied systems.
https://www.nvenergy.com/publish/content/dam/nvenergy/bill_i...
The grid operator for the northeast, according to my Governor, has been well-behind in building out infrastructure. Of course new datacenters cause more load. But so do new houses (we're building as many as we can) and electric cars, etc.
[0] https://www.eia.gov/states/MD/data/dashboard/electricity cannot drop a direct link, but you can expand the "Total electricity consumption per capita, annual" chart
Maybe I’m reading something wrong. Or maybe there is an anticipated increase in demand?
Wait till they hear about big Ag and how they use, abuse and ‘pay’ for water, while farming deserts.
Many opponents to AI do not view the tech as having a net benefit. Comparing it to food production would serve to make you look more the fool to them despite their claims about water consumption frequently being wacky.
It is absolutely justified to be extremely suspicious of big corporate. They've earned it.
Another take is that the same companies that are pushing for datacentres are often the same companies that control social media and traditional media outlets and are using this control to foster datacentres onto thee average person who is either wildly unenthusiastic about or at best ambivalent about.
It's all pretty moot anyways.
Big tech oligarchs have gotten pretty much everything they want over the years, it's not like the average person in bum-fuck nowhere is really going to be able to stop them from destroying their watersheds, poisoning their air and jacking up electrical prices.
I wouldn't get too upset about opposition to datacentres if I were you.
Money is King and the King has spoken.
There will be datacentres where ever the tech oligarchs want there isn't anything anyone can do about it.
This is also happening in Australia. I wonder if it is a similar story in the US, or not.
In Australia, rooftop solar and batteries have become so widespread, many properties have dramatically reduced their consumption of power from the grid. This poses a problem when electricity usage costs are used, not just to cover the power consumed, but also the grid infrastructure, much of which are fixed costs which are incurred irrespective of actual usage. In response, the regulator is looking at changing the billing structure to increase the fixed part of the bill which you pay irrespective of how much power you use.
The complaint here is that PJM is spending money on upgrading the long range wires and passing that fee in a way that's not calculated for usage but instead it's likely divided evenly amongst member states. If you're upgrading wires in PA why should Maryland pay for that? These would taking in new/higher fees being passed to consumers.
The long range transmission lines are different than short term transmission lines. The long range ones appear someone to hit electricity from a power plant in California for a business in Baltimore.
ETA: utility companies make profit on capex, not opex
If the increase in usage (with rates staying flat) is insufficient to cover for the return on investment, then who is making the decision to take the risk for making these capital investment? The risk taker can definitely ‘pay’ for an over confidence in the market.
If it is because the increased usage of the grid as a whole reaches a step function requiring more investment, the system can have a gradually increasing usage price rate.
I am trying to find out if someone in the system is trying to eat up the benefits and publicly say “it’s because of AI” or maybe I am not understanding the situation well.
1) the first MW is cheaper to generate than the 100th. Newer plants. Cheaper fuels. More efficient. You run your good stuff always, for peak it’s on demand.
2) the cost of the old plants are already paid for, if adding a new data center requires a new plant; may add a big cost with a 50 year payback.
I don't know of any large community ran utilities, just small ones. I'm guessing the scale starts being a problem eventually.
https://www.organizedmoney.fm/p/how-private-equity-is-drivin...
https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/data-centers-arent-the-ma...
I honestly think they should pay fully for the infrastructure that provides power for them. It's not fair to have regular users pay for this.
they're going to have to learn to be a lot more thoughtful about the seething masses (that their products are forcing them to lose jobs to)...
What’s crazy is the utility company admits that the infrastructure is for the growth in the other states. They admit Maryland won’t grow as fast. They concede Maryland needs less infrastructure. But still saddled Maryland residents with the extra bills for out of state data centers?
I mean, at least say it’s for Maryland. Just to make it look good? I don’t know? Make some kind of attempt to make it palatable.
I’m wondering if it’s just easier to pass the cost on to people in Maryland than it is in other states? Like is the regulatory environment with respect to this kind of thing more lax or something?
There has to be some kind of explanation. Because on the face of it, this just doesn’t look good. It makes ai and tech industry just seem like robber barons. And tech guys don’t need that right now.
And since the grid is being updated to accommodate new paying customers, Maryland will benefit from lower future prices. Right? Right?
Electricity supply is highly regulated. Prices for electricity are constrained and often set by state regulators. These are so-called "usage fees". But beyond that the utility is allowed to charge customers for infrastructure and transmissio and those fees are out of control. We recently had a court case where a North Carolina utility illegally overcharged customers but the judge didn't assign damages because legally the utility could just charge customers for those damages [2]. And the legislature passed laws to protect the utility as well.
This is going to get worse too because private equity is rapidly moving into this market and they know that capex can be entirely pushed onto customers with no recourse.
So the data centers tend to get sweetheart deals on electricity too. So while the total cost of electricity has gone up (per Mwh), they pay less pushing even more burden onto everyone else. Plus they get discounts on property taxes, energy tariffs and other taxes, as in the case of Kevin O'Leary's mega-DC in Utah.
But this state interconnect bill is another level of evil because it's pushing the costs onto states that have nothing to do with the data center and won't get any "benefit" (there is no benefit) anyway.
What we need are laws that make these projects pay for their own infrastructure. This might cause them to build near power sources. Great. Away from people, mostly.
The level of regulatory corruption here is actually sickening. Take Elon's Grok DC in Memphis that exploits local laws against clean air by using "mobile" gas turbines in the city of Memphis.
[1]: https://newsroom.haas.berkeley.edu/research/power-hungry-cry...
[2]: https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/local/no-refunds-for-duke-...
Presumably they'd like the infrastructure spending to go to infrastructure that improves their lives in some way. I somehow doubt that, when complaining, the vast majority of said people had in mind "let's spend hundreds of billions of dollars on datacenters while everything else crumbles".
But also, the price of grid upgrades are more and more often being passed directly to customers and you don’t really get a choice of whether or not you’re a customer.
I complain about not enough direct flights from my local airport, if they put in a bunch of direct flights for billionaires only I would complain even harder.
Was your comment trying to normalize this, or blame citizens?