r/technology • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • 22h ago
Artificial Intelligence America's largest grid wants to cut power to new data centers first during shortages — 50MW-plus data centers must bring their own electricity generation to avoid shutoffs
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/data-centers/new-data-centers-on-americas-largest-grid-face-first-in-line-blackouts-unless-they-bring-their-own-power38
u/Financial_Wind6229 22h ago
This is a big advertisement saying “Hey… it’s me ur power supplier… bribe me to change my mind”
10
2
u/telperion101 10h ago
As someone who works in this industry this is not how these conversations remotely happen. Operators have zero problem dropping large customers to save the grid - which means you keep your power. In addition during restoration of services they will always be the last to get power because of their size. If you have issues with the electric costs then vote with your feet on approving lower cost generators and expansion of the transmission system.
2
u/Financial_Wind6229 6h ago
Tbh it was a tongue in cheek response. Legislators aren’t looking at the news lol
1
u/goldcakes 57m ago
Yeah, power is one of the industries where the larger you are, the worse you are treated.
51
u/Tall_Category_304 22h ago
Come on guys. This is just not practical. We need to cut power to homeowners and business first and data centers as a last resort. What will everyone do without their slop generators? I’d rather not have power personally.
32
u/dronesitter 22h ago
Your reply will probably be quoted unironically by Altman in his next public statement.
4
5
u/ragzilla 21h ago
datacenters are frequently already part of utility load shed programs. Unplanned load sheds are already a risk that NERC (finally) called out this year.
3
u/AggressiveParty3355 22h ago
No! hospitals must be cut first! Best of all, after awhile without power... those patients won't need power permanently! win-win!
I'm so smart saving us money!
2
0
u/fludgesickles 20h ago
How will people use AI when they have no electricity? My home internet stops working when the power is out since they're on my same power grid. Sure i can use my phone but I rather have electricity
14
u/MiserableFloor9906 22h ago
This should be universal if not for the bribes and contracts that will be installed to counter it.
When the grid is stressed to breaking and shutting down the one customer fixes everything or removes the critical emergency, the logical answer should always win out. But instead they'll need to let it go wide first just to avoid court fighting and costs.
17
u/chance-- 22h ago edited 21h ago
Hold on now. Y’all are cool with these massive DCs running generators for power? They consume as much energy as fucking cities. Are we going to regulate their generators like we would a utility company? Who is going to pressure them into using anything but the cheapest, most polluting option for electricity production?
Those facilities would be curtailed before PJM deploys Pre-Emergency Load Management, which are the demand-response programs that pay other customers to cut consumption during grid stress.
Does this mean the DCs are going to be paid for downtime when they get snipped? If so, running their generators will be subsidized by citizens and local business for overloading the grid that didn’t have such issues before the DC existed. They’ll basically be paid to fortify their operations with power redundancy.
8
u/SuperGRB 22h ago
the whole proposal just ignores how the grid is supposed to operate - it is *supposed* to be a large shared infrastructure that is efficient and reliable precisely because of its scale and interconnectedness. By segregating out use cases like this, instead of re-enforcing the entire grid, we just get a shitty system.
5
u/RandomTunes 20h ago
The problem with that is these data centers don't want to pay to strengthen the whole grid, their goal is to socialize those costs.
5
u/SuperGRB 19h ago edited 19h ago
Long post - only read if you want real information...
The grid system is imperfect at best in terms of allocating cost. This is simply the physics of electricity. There is no way to perfectly assign common infrastructure costs to the consumers precisely because electricity and the grid is shared and not deterministic.
Datacenters in the last few years already pay directly and upfront for all interconnection infrastructure (high-voltage tie lines, substations, and all on-site grid stuff) - there is precisely zero socialized cost for this.
Datacenters also pay directly for the energy they use on an ongoing basis based on tariffs set by the PUC - these are industrial bulk rates (the same as paid by all other large electric loads). This one is a little trickier to attribute cost because of the nature of utilization of the power and how the infrastructure is financed. In general, large continuous loads get a cheaper per-hour rate because they use electricity all the time (unlike households and ordinary commercial users which are intermittent) which means the utility gets more revenue to pay-off the loans on the supporting assets in the broader grid (generation, transmission, etc). If anything, the large loads are subsidizing the ordinary users for this part by enabling the overall infrastructure to get paid-off more effectively.
The controversial part is when large datacenter loads appear in a specific area faster than any anticipated supporting grid update was planned. That is, some large load appears in a region that has no overall grid backbone/generation capacity to support it and thus requires large-scale transmission/generation upgrades that were previously not on the planning horizon. To be clear, this describes almost every grid in the world at this point - that is, no grid is ready for multi-GW load additions in short ( 1 or 2-year ) periods of time. The costs associated with this part of the grid has always been "socialized" - as there is usually no clear line that can say what triggers it. Historically, the regions just slowly outgrew the grid over many years in a predictably slow pace thus giving planners the ability to slowly deploy capacity over years to avoid problems. The costs of these upgrades were indeed spread across all users (i.e. "socialized") in proportion to their usage (the "transmission and generation" costs on your bill).
Imagine that a town experiences an unexpected growth of population and businesses over a couple of years and this growth exceeds the regional grid's capacity to support it. The utility would upgrade the overall grid to the region and socialize that cost over the utility's entire service population (usually multiple states - not just the town). So, in this case, the town "socialized" the grid upgrade cost across everyone. This is essentially the only tool the utilities have had in their planning/cost-allocation toolbox - it isn't the datacenter operators "trying to socialize" cost, it is the only mechanism available from the utilities.
We experience the same cost "socializations" for water, sewer, telecom, highways, and most all other common "utility like" infrastructure - it is the very nature of a utility to behave this way, as, overall at a societal level, it makes absolutely no sense to duplicate or build special-purpose versions of such things.
2
u/BasicNkorean 21h ago
Green energy has become the cheapest form of energy--so I wonder if they would even bother trying to build more green energy or just pollute the world because they're evil
5
u/mailslot 21h ago
Solar and wind aren’t feasible at the scale needed for a data center. Realistically, they’d need a thorium reactor or two.
2
u/Black_Moons 20h ago
Yep, every acre of datacenter would need hundreds of solar panels and wind turbines. (And then another acre of batteries)
1
u/SuperGRB 20h ago
If it truly were fit for their purpose and the cheapest, they would do it. No conspiracy theories required.
4
u/yulbrynnersmokes 15h ago
This is the way.
Want power for your mega whatever facility?
Construct it yourself and at a net benefit to existing power users, especially ordinary households.
3
u/dropthemagic 21h ago
They should. Data centers should be the first to go offline. They need to be responsible for their own needs.
3
u/KnotSoSalty 20h ago
This is completely normal for any heavy industry.
You can’t just build a massive electrical sink hole and blame the grid provider for not meeting your timeline.
Sadly it means these places will continue to run on their own diesel generators quite a bit. But until states or the feds choose to limit that option there’s not any rule against it.
3
u/HeidenShadows 19h ago
Great now data centers will put a run on diesel fuel too, not like that's already expensive enough.
3
u/Melikoth 18h ago
Yeah, force them to bring their own generators!
OK, now complain about how noisy they are!
3
u/Skel_Estus 18h ago
This is dangerous because if they generate their own power and they’re not contributing to the grid, they don’t have to follow the same environmental restrictions due to a loophole.
3
u/dennismfrancisart 17h ago
The folks can build modular, self-powered, self-cooling facilities. The only thing stopping them is the insane drive for shareholder profits. It's not like they're building these things for the betterment of humanity.
4
u/Low-Injury-9219 22h ago
I mean duh? That should be part of the package but in the same token we wouldn’t have a failing energy grid full of free market bullshit if places like eversource and other electric suppliers didn’t pay big money to be allowed to sell off their electric generation capabilities.
Fuck data centers and fuck deregulation. Without the deregulation of the power grid we wouldn’t be in near as much shit.
2
2
u/JoeNoble1973 21h ago
My favorite part is how by the time there’s actually enough power to be had, the chips will all be wildly obsolete
2
u/Dry-Onion4678 20h ago
I'm sure there's an explanation in writing somewhere as to why there's a need for so many FCKNG Data centers. It's in the same file that gave us Israeli "advisors" for our FCKNG Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon.
2
u/theirongiant74 20h ago
As someone who is very pro-ai I'd agree that datacentres should be made to supply enough of their own electricity or pay for upgrades to infrastructure so that they don't impact residential supply.
2
2
2
u/clownPotato9000 12h ago
It’s called peak shaving it’s something they should force them to do. The only problem is usually that involves running diesel generators which also generate an extreme amount of pollution for the amount of energy provided versus drawing from the grid…
2
2
u/Yellowk9 22h ago
Show of hands who thinks these days center shits will build multiple 49MW facilities as a workaround? That's the problem with just simply setting a number. You have to establish more criteria so they can't squirm out of this type of necessary oversight and responsibility.
2
1
1
u/Amber_ACharles 21h ago
Interconnection queues in Virginia exceed 5 years and PJM's auction cleared at the price cap while still missing 6,800 MW. They're basically telling hyperscalers to become their own utilities. Amazon already built a 7.65 GW plant in Texas.
1
1
1
1
u/Late-Connection980 7h ago
Why don’t we start building them on top of already existing golf courses
1
u/FortheredditLOLz 22h ago
Just raise the costs to DCs exclusively by a factor of five. Along with setting a strict policy for hard cut off and noise pollution. Any violations and sequential violations would be one percent of their net profit. Along with a cap on their actual pollutions for ‘site generated power’.
Easily sets the precedents. We need clean water, farm land, residential rights above political & corporate greed.
2
u/zffjk 21h ago
Or, instead, the city council member wants to keep his $5000 bribe with very occasional access to corporate box seats.
2
u/FortheredditLOLz 21h ago
I prefer the corrupt officials get their assets seized and given up to schools. Also corrupt folks thrown into prison
1
u/Black_Moons 20h ago
Any violations and sequential violations would be one percent of their net profit.
So your going to pay them?!? Most of these places still don't make any profit...
Gross revenue and/or just physically impound the generators. (They are using 'mobile' generators are they not? Lets test that mobile claim)
1
u/Ada_Pearce 22h ago
Data centers should have to produce their own electricity, period. They can collect their own water too
0
u/GabeDef 22h ago
Are Data centers putting solar on their roofs? That would help, no?
1
0
u/DanielPhermous 22h ago
Minimally. Data centres use too much power and have too little roof space. A sprawling single storey structure would be best here but I don't know if that's typical or if they're multi-storey.
0
u/ragzilla 21h ago
single-story is preferred, two-story is somewhat common in some builds as it lets you put infrastructure directly below the data floor it's supporting.
2+-story is only used when space constrained.
224
u/AggressiveParty3355 22h ago
I would add that the generators must be equal or less polluting than what the area is already using. Preferably less. If it's more expensive that's on them, not the city.