Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

US Grid Constraints: Towards 40GW+ of Behind-the-Meter Datacenter by 2028?

newsletter.semianalysis.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 83 posts

Re: US Grid Constraints: Towards 40GW+ of Behind-the-Meter Datacenter by 2028?

#61

Post by everfrustrated »

marcyb5st wrote: post #60
everfrustrated wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't long ago that every city had a coal power station right in the center of it. Things aren't nearly as bad as you suggest.

Let's go back to have open air sewers while we are at it. I mean, if the goal is to bring back stuff that lowered life expectancy and reduce 50+ years of progress, I don't see why not. I really believe that as arguments go, yours is truly terrible. Additionally, you proved my point that the majority really doesn't care about the folks whose quality of life worsen because someone built a datacenter close to their home…

Your entire life is subsidized by those wealthier than you. Get off your high horse. Did you build your own house? Did you build your own car? Do you make your own power? What really has been your contribution to society.

Re: US Grid Constraints: Towards 40GW+ of Behind-the-Meter Datacenter by 2028?

#62

Post by ZeroGravitas »

toast0 wrote: post #49
energy123 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not really building anything other than renewables. Nuclear is a rounding error and new coal is just replacing old coal.

Stats on wikipedia [1] stopped breaking out coal from other fossil fuel ('thermal') production in 2021. But coal was 4.1 million GWh in 2014 and 5.0 million GWh in 2021; that's a lot of (relatively) new coal. Fossil fuel growth since 2023 is a lot less than earlier years, so maybe they have hit saturation for fossil fuel generation. I would expect high fossil fuel prices so far this year would drive usage lower, the…

Stats on additional generation for the last few years:

https://ember-energy.org/data/electricity-data-explorer/?ent...

Re: US Grid Constraints: Towards 40GW+ of Behind-the-Meter Datacenter by 2028?

#63

Post by stouset »

polski-g wrote: post #57
stouset wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we build a terawatt of green energy capacity then turn around and immediately use it for datacenters rather than to replace fossil fuel generation, we haven’t gained anything. If anything we’ve lost out .

You gained the datacenter, which is providing a highly desired service... Are you European?

Personally I prefer a livable climate and affordable power over yet another datacenter for AI or mining crypto.

Re: US Grid Constraints: Towards 40GW+ of Behind-the-Meter Datacenter by 2028?

#64

Post by leonidasrup »

energy123 wrote: post #41
toast0 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is building all types of generation because they are rapidly growing their electric network (generation doubled from 2014 to 2024). Europe's generation is roughly flat during the same period. It doesn't make sense to build a lot of everything in a system without growth in generation. Replacing decommisioned generators would be enough. Growth in solar and wind generation (for ideological or economic reasons) mea…

They're not really building anything other than renewables. Nuclear is a rounding error and new coal is just replacing old coal.

China is still installing much more new coal power capacity then is decommissioning old coal power capacity.

Also the average age of Chinese coal power plants is much lower then the average age of US coal power plants. These new Chinese coal power plants could be used for decades.

Last available data from 2025.

https://www.statista.com/chart/36007/power-capacity-of-new-d...

https://globalenergymonitor.org/projects/global-coal-plant-t...

Re: US Grid Constraints: Towards 40GW+ of Behind-the-Meter Datacenter by 2028?

#65

Post by ReptileMan »

felixdoerp wrote: post #14

I am interested to see how this plays out and what will happen to potentially stranded assets. Not even talking about outdated chips but all these gas turbines. I appreciate what this push can do to the built out of grids etc.

Developing world will soak them in a heartbeat. Unreliable grid is one of the problems they have that slow their industrialization and development pace. If you are foreign investor - LNG terminal + turbines may be more expensive, but if you bypass some of the bribes and incompetence it may be worth it.

Re: US Grid Constraints: Towards 40GW+ of Behind-the-Meter Datacenter by 2028?

#66

Post by cucumber3732842 »

leonidasrup wrote: post #51
cucumber3732842 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>, but foundries and aluminium smelting plants have commonly been sited near generators in Britain. IDK about Britain, especially historically when you would have been building aluminum smelters. It's not normal in the US more or less since the advent of the grid. I'm sure people will be along shortly to construe exceptions or special cases where the fossil fuels were extra cheap as the norm or heat was what they als…

In most places aluminum smelters have been located near power plants, because aluminum smelters have large electricity demand and transporting large amounts of electricity over large distances is expensive (high capacity power lines are expensive). Electricity costs are between 40% - 50% of costs of the finished aluminum. Also, reliability. "Due to the nature of the process, power outages have the potential to cause…

"near" vs "next door or closer".

Like in all these historical cases there's been some sort of high voltage transmission in between. Sure, not a hundred mile line through god knows how many jurisdictions, but still plenty, a far cry from the "this won't pencil out if we have go farther than across the street" that we're currently seeing.

Basically what I'm saying is that if datacenters with the closest thing you'll ever see to infinite piles of cash can't expand the grid then we're in for a very rough time.

Re: US Grid Constraints: Towards 40GW+ of Behind-the-Meter Datacenter by 2028?

#67

Post by leonidasrup »

everfrustrated wrote: post #34
rapsey wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was my point. We in the EU are destroying ourselves. The US is racing ahead and investing in all kinds of power generation technologies.

The difference is Europeans expect government to "fix" things. Americans expect companies to do that. Eg, the disastrous energy policies all across Europe which have made price of energy insanely high with no hope of ever coming down (these high prices are all locked in with long term contracts). America just builds lots of new power. Because of fewer market distorting policies the new power comes online at cheaper m…

America has a lot of cheap fracking gas. Europe imports this gas from US in form of LNG at much higher prices.

The Russian gas is cheaper, but paid by Ukrainian blood.

Re: US Grid Constraints: Towards 40GW+ of Behind-the-Meter Datacenter by 2028?

#68

Post by energy123 »

leonidasrup wrote: post #64
energy123 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not really building anything other than renewables. Nuclear is a rounding error and new coal is just replacing old coal.

China is still installing much more new coal power capacity then is decommissioning old coal power capacity. Also the average age of Chinese coal power plants is much lower then the average age of US coal power plants. These new Chinese coal power plants could be used for decades. Last available data from 2025. https://www.statista.com/chart/36007/power-capacity-of-new-d... https://globalenergymonitor.org/projects/gl…

What you said does not technically contradict what I said. We have to decide what it is that we wish to measure.

I do not pay attention to the "decommissioning" statistic, because a binary on/off switch is an arbitrary threshold.

Example -- China reduces the output of every coal plant to 1%, they would be "decommissioning" nothing, yet it would be fair to say they've abandoned coal.

That's why it's a better metric to look at change in net coal usage (which is flat or going down in China last year), which factors in non-binary underutilization of old coal plants, as new coal and renewables come online.

From ZeroGravitas in the parallel thread: https://ember-energy.org/data/electricity-data-explorer/?ent...

Re: US Grid Constraints: Towards 40GW+ of Behind-the-Meter Datacenter by 2028?

#69

Post by htrp »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #25
Humorist2290 wrote: post #19

Interesting analysis. In it they say Worse, the burden [generating energy] increasingly falls on the buyer [data center developers] I don't believe this is worse, but appropriate. The grid is a shared resource, used by enterprise and individuals. If some class of consumers demand an outsized share of that resource, they should pay an outsized share of its maintenance and development. I don't see that happening. It's…

When the first wave of these datacenter stories came out, the utilities complained that they couldn't finance the work because the data centers refused to commit to paying for them over the longer term, leaving other ratepayers on the hook for the investment. This seems to further confirm that, though now the data centers are being portrayed as the victims in this. The sentence immediately following your quote: > sec…

venture startups (nuclear) and alternative energy public equities

Re: US Grid Constraints: Towards 40GW+ of Behind-the-Meter Datacenter by 2028?

#70

Post by rapsey »

psd1 wrote: post #53
logicchains wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There is money now for a huge investment boom Not in western Europe, because they spent almost all their excess economic output over the past few decades on welfare/transfer payments.

Are you aware that public spending is a transfer from the public sector to the private, and that poor people spend approximately 100% of their income? Would you argue that stock buy-backs are a better use of public money? At some point, probably in the 80s, the prophets of Mammon convinced policymakers that the liquidity of capital markets was the highest good, that no liquidity was enough, and that the financial cla…

Public spending is dead unproductive capital. Giving poor people money just traps them into a cycle of poverty.

Spain also had blackouts.

Post reply on HN