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Maryland citizens hit with $2B power grid upgrade for out-of-state AI

tomshardware.com

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Re: Maryland citizens hit with $2B power grid upgrade for out-of-state AI

#61

Post by JuniperMesos »

rockskon wrote: post #42
lostlogin wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> increasingly incorrect and absurd-sounding claims about water Wait till they hear about big Ag and how they use, abuse and ‘pay’ for water, while farming deserts.

Somehow I don't see arguments comparing powering AI with producing food to go over well with them. 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.

Right; anti-data-center sentiment is really a way of attacking AI as a technology; arguments about the water or power use of data centers are just an excuse.

Re: Maryland citizens hit with $2B power grid upgrade for out-of-state AI

#62

Post by stackskipton »

luxuryballs wrote: post #2

who is actually signing off on these agreements to build it, knowing the bill goes to the locals? seems openly shady

Varies on the project. As someone dealing with this locally, it varies how the project got approved. Almost all the approval is at local level, sometimes at state level. Feds getting involve is pretty rare.

A) Sometimes, it's existing datacenter that repurposed from "normal" datacenter to AI datacenter with power consumption skyrocketing. There generally is not a ton of approval in this case or power company came by asking for additional infrastructure approval and who the hell denies that.

B) Some areas classed datacenters as "industrial" use so they could be built without a ton of preapproval. Most counties have closed that loophole but existing permits may allow additional datacenters to be built.

C) Local officials approving things over desire of the voters. Alot of people don't pay attention to their local politicians despite them having most impact on their day-to-day life. Therefore, you end up with local politicians who will believe whatever they are told along with just plain overall corruption. Most of it legal.

Also, as someone who used to live in Capital Region, National Politics can suck out all oxygen in the room so local officials are even less likely monitored.

Re: Maryland citizens hit with $2B power grid upgrade for out-of-state AI

#63

Post by smallerize »

tempaccount5050 wrote: post #58
jamescrowley wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

‘More power than an entire state’. Yep - take the Stratos data center project in Utah, the first phase of which is expected to consume 3GW and at full capacity is expected to be 9GW. By comparison, the entire state of Utah currently uses about 4GW.

3GW per what? Hour? Year? Minute?

3GWh/h.

Re: Maryland citizens hit with $2B power grid upgrade for out-of-state AI

#64

Post by downrightmike »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #24

I'll be the first to complain about Texas being on its own energy grid and the dumpster fire of resultant things that happen because of it, but it is worthwhile to call out that this sort of thing is not possible in Texas because of that.

Texans just get surprise thousand dollar+ bills for one night of usage as the demand charge allows... if they get any power at all

Re: Maryland citizens hit with $2B power grid upgrade for out-of-state AI

#65

Post by tokioyoyo »

JuniperMesos wrote: post #59
anonymousiam wrote: post #28

It seems that big money can overrule local government regulators at will. 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'r…

As a YIMBYist who can't afford a house where I live, I actively want big money to overrule local government regulators at will, because big money developers make their big money by building houses and local regulators are responding to the NIMBYist concerns of ordinary homeowners that result in insufficient housing getting built. A local government regulator fighting for the interests of local homeowners does not nec…

There's 'big money' and, there's also "BIG MONEY". Former doesn't always win against the government, the latter pretty much overrules anything.

Re: Maryland citizens hit with $2B power grid upgrade for out-of-state AI

#66

Post by downrightmike »

jmyeet wrote: post #16

We've been here before [1]. In that case, extra load on the grid meant the municipality needed to purchase more power (at higher prices), which raised everybody's prices. 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 tho…

A bunch of mini Enron 2.0's that aren't actually mini

Re: Maryland citizens hit with $2B power grid upgrade for out-of-state AI

#67

Post by rahkiin »

tempaccount5050 wrote: post #58
jamescrowley wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

‘More power than an entire state’. Yep - take the Stratos data center project in Utah, the first phase of which is expected to consume 3GW and at full capacity is expected to be 9GW. By comparison, the entire state of Utah currently uses about 4GW.

3GW per what? Hour? Year? Minute?

Watt is Joule/second

3 gigajoule per second. It already has a unit of time.

Re: Maryland citizens hit with $2B power grid upgrade for out-of-state AI

#68

Post by jamescrowley »

tempaccount5050 wrote: post #58
jamescrowley wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

‘More power than an entire state’. Yep - take the Stratos data center project in Utah, the first phase of which is expected to consume 3GW and at full capacity is expected to be 9GW. By comparison, the entire state of Utah currently uses about 4GW.

3GW per what? Hour? Year? Minute?

3GW/9GW is peak load, as I understand it - data centres usually operate at 85-90% of peak load according to Goldman Sachs.

Meanwhile, the 4GW figure is average demand - Utah consumed 35,075GWh for 2025, so average demand of 4GW (35075/(365*24)).

Re: Maryland citizens hit with $2B power grid upgrade for out-of-state AI

#69

Post by 3eb7988a1663 »

phowat wrote: post #55
denkmoon wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like all food production has equal merit. Growing almonds in the desert is national food security obviously.

Since this is HN let's be factually correct. Almond production is irrelevant in water usage. The bulk of it is going to animal agriculture.

I am finding that 42% of California water is agriculture and 8% of that is for almonds. 3% of state water usage on a luxury nut might not be moving the needle that much, but it does feel wasteful for a state that is perpetually hovering on drought conditions.

Re: Maryland citizens hit with $2B power grid upgrade for out-of-state AI

#70

Post by fooqux »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #50
fooqux wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there's this belief that a for-profit company will naturally be more efficient. No idea if that's actually true in practice though. Or if efficiency > the profits the company takes. I don't know of any large community ran utilities, just small ones. I'm guessing the scale starts being a problem eventually.

TVA and the NY power authority are genuinely massive, government run utilities. Both are also known for pretty low power bills.

Nice! I didn't know about those. Although it's hard to directly compare rates since cost can be so geographically dependant.
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