It’s raising questions over whether diverting power to higher-paying customers will leave enough for others and whether it’s fair to excuse big power users from paying for the grid. Federal regulators are trying to figure out what to do about it, and quickly.
Front and center is the data center that Amazon’s cloud computing subsidiary, Amazon Web Services, is building next to the Susquehanna nuclear plant in eastern Pennsylvania.
The arrangement between the plant’s owners and AWS — called a “behind the meter” connection — is the first such to come before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. For now, FERC has rejected a deal that could eventually send 960 megawatts — about 40% of the plant’s capacity — to the data center. That’s enough to power more than a half-million homes.
So utilities (presumably transmission providers who have a government-granted territorial monopoly, mind you) are complaining about not getting tariff on those behind the meter megawatts?
It seems like an alternate way to spin this story is that Big Tech is making agreements that avoid putting load on the nation’s aging and overloaded transmission infrastructure, which would be a good thing.
Not that I’m endorsing them per se. Electricity pricing and policy is complicated, and increased demand will directly or indirectly increase consumer prices (though long term it could lower them or even help fund nuclear renaissance). But it just seems like another case of big companies being crybabies when they think it might help them get their way.
The problem is this allows big companies to skirt the power grid and therefore not have to invest money in it to make sure it’s good and can instead continue to let the grid fall apart even more as they have their own private connections. This is the same reason why government run healthcare and forced public school would be good as it would force rich people to invest in these public goods rather then use their own private better versions.
Transmission providers don’t build much new line for other reasons… It’s hard, for example, to get utilities, environmental groups, landowners, and regulators from multiple jurisdictions to agree on things. This idea that providers would build more if there was just a bit more demand on the system (instead of simply pocketing the tariff increase) is fanciful. Moreover, that demand would simply generate more headwinds for renewables, who actually need transmission.
I’m not saying the increased demand would make them build more. I’m saying if companies are forced to rely on the grid they will help pressure/fund new expansions or maintenance on the power grid as if it fails they’re gonna lose money. If they’re not reliant on the grid anymore through things like this they would have no interest in making it better and they would stop applying pressure to make things better. And also atleast in my area increased demand from data center has caused attempts to build more transmission lines. Without these data centers having to use the public grid those investments wouldn’t be happening. Now there’s arguments to be had there about whether we should be encouraging data centers like this at all with the environmental cost of them using this much energy but if managed correctly it could lead to more investment in the power grid to make it better. Whereas if we allow companies to make their own power grid essentially then our current grid will be allowed to continue to fail.
Didn’t you guys just declare a energy emergency? Surely that means the needs of the people must come first? Or is that not how emergencies work anymore?
Whoa there, the corporations are super citizens. So obviously they get first call.
People need AI just as they need air or water, silly!
You have to read between the lines.
“Energy emergency” = “pump even more oil out of the ground.”
b.b.bbbut ‘corporations are people, too’
But won’t someone think of the additional profits that might not made?
deleted by creator
Federal regulators are trying to figure out what to do about it, and quickly.
$20 says they’ll be stopped before reaching a solution or overruled afterwards by the fascists in charge of every branch of the federal government now 😮💨🤬
Preceded by, “whether it’s fair to excuse big power users from paying for the grid.”
NO, it’s not. Nobody in charge seems to know the word NO when it comes to big tech. Just say NO.
If there only was a way to produce electricity without having to rely on quasi-monopolies…
Just rely on a government monopoly! Quebec has the cheapest electricity in North America, it didn’t happen randomly…
But that costs a lot of money! Money that is far better sitting in an account gaining interest!
Well it makes sense. The problem is not this specific issue, it’s the ever increasing AI use and Bitcoin mining. And bidding war for electricity.
I mean there is possibly an opportunity to use water from cooling data centers to feed back in to steam powered power generation (like nuclear or fossil fuel stations), or is that not how it works?
According to my cursory research, cooling loops run somewhere between 10 and 50 °C with the difference of inlet and outlet between 5 and 10 K.
Steam power generation uses the phase change of water, so you need above 100°C.
On the high end of the temperature range, you could possibly run some small district heating while the lower temperatures require active cooling.My thinking was more about the initial heating of the water. What happens to the steam after it’s used to turn turbines? Does it float back down to a settling area ready at 50°C or something ready to be picked up for another loop, or is the water lost and and endless supply of new water is pumped in? If the latter, you could save on fuel by using the data center outflow as the inflow of water to the system (starting from 40°C or something, instead of from room temp or colder).
It seems both types exist, though the ones that reuse water do so by feeding cooler water into wet cooling towers and cooling the steam with some new water. I don’t think having warmer starting water would help here, most likely it would be bad.
The kind that use a continuous supply of fresh water do exist and are common, but it seems like they don’t build them anymore due to environmental impacts. There’s possibly an opportunity with existing ones to build a data center next door and pump the warmer water to the power station for reduced fuel usage in heating the water?
Something else I have seen is building a data center next to a water park, using the warmer water to provide heated swimming pools. I thought that was a brilliant way to reduce energy wastage.
How about we just let the data centers build their own gd power sources instead?
And if they don’t want to do that they can go fuck themselves.
Data mining isn’t necessary for life.
If we were intelligent we would have put those installations way up north where they could be powered by hydro and the heat could have been reused to warm up greenhouses in order to grow food locally for populations that need to pay a ridiculous amount of money for anything that isn’t procured via hunting.
That’s because nobody is using it.
Who’s paying for the electricity that it is using, then?
Many companies just build their own small power plants when they have an expectation of high energy usage.
Yeah this is what the larger chemical plants and oil refineries do on the Gulf coast- they have their own generation units.
Pretty sure there are some companies in the desert who do the same thing with solar, moslty machine shops but still.
It’s raising questions over whether diverting power to higher-paying customers will leave enough for others
kagis
It sounds like at least some of this is adding generation capacity.
Three Mile Island Reactor Returning in 2028 as Crane Center: Microsoft Signs 20-year Nuclear PPA with Constellation
Sept. 20, 2024
The new PPA is Constellation’s largest ever with Microsoft, so big that the energy company will restart closed Three Mile Island’s nuclear-powered Unit 1 close by the Susquehanna River in central Pennsylvania.
I mean, that generation capacity had been offline. Wasn’t providing power for anyone in the condition it had been in.
I get that you really love Kagi, but must you tell us which search engine you’re using every time you use it?
I don’t say, “duckduckgoes” on a separate line every time I dig up a hyperlink.
CNN reports that all the energy generated by the Three Mile Island reactor will go to MS’s AI data center.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/20/energy/three-mile-island-microsoft-ai/index.html
