141–150 of 214 posts
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Yea it's the same thing in California and will likely be a growing problem.
What happens (in Australia and in California) if rooftop solar and battery technology really have a huge breakthrough and the capacity of the major power generators were never utilized in the lifetime of those generators? Do consumers just ‘bail out’ the power generation companies?
Can someone explain to me why local governments are so against datacenters? It seems like a golden opportunity to build electric infrastructure that's paid for by corporations and if AI is a bubble at least that infrastructure will remain and continue to provide cheap power.
Basically every AI company using "catastrophizing" and "ragebait" as their marketing strategy is working so well that normies are afraid they're going to lose their cushy do-nothing desk jobs. Hence the braindead/conspiracy narratives that data centers are going to drink all the fresh water, give your kids cancer, kill the plants and quadruple your electric bill.
What's most hilarious about this; dramatically expanding the power grid is absolutely necessary to get off of fossil fuels, yet the same people who used to scream about climate change are now trying to block grid upgrades paid for by data centers. With zero awareness of the irony.
This will only get worse as time goes on because first world countries are aging at increasing rates. Old people hate change. They're deficit spending their children's future labor while obstructing the creation of anything productive that might dig us out of the hole they put us in.
Can someone explain to me why local governments are so against datacenters? It seems like a golden opportunity to build electric infrastructure that's paid for by corporations and if AI is a bubble at least that infrastructure will remain and continue to provide cheap power.
If your town users a peak of say 100MW and is powered by two 50MW feeds Then a new DC creates another 300MW of demand and builds 300MW more feeds Then the DC goes bust, you're left with 350MW of potential supply and 50MW of demand Compare with a highway, you had a 2 lane road, and it was fine, with 1000 cars an hour, then someone expanded it to 8 lanes and filled them with another 3000 cars an hour. Then they vanishe…
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If your town users a peak of say 100MW and is powered by two 50MW feeds Then a new DC creates another 300MW of demand and builds 300MW more feeds Then the DC goes bust, you're left with 350MW of potential supply and 50MW of demand Compare with a highway, you had a 2 lane road, and it was fine, with 1000 cars an hour, then someone expanded it to 8 lanes and filled them with another 3000 cars an hour. Then they vanishe…
You're kidding yourself if you think people are laying down in front of bulldozers out of concern for trivial maintenance costs on under-utilized grid capacity.
In reality there's nothing to gain in theory, and in practice it correlates with higher energy costs
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Ah, yes. California. Where large swathes of costal areas hover between 60ºF and 80ºF. We are talking about Nevada the weather of locality matters and where it can be supremely hot.
You posted the Texas grid, I posted the California grid. Here's the NW grid which includes Nevada. Same thing, demand peaks around 6PM when people get home and turn on their houses. https://www.eia.gov/electricity/gridmonitor/expanded-view/el...
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…
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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…
> 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 n…
Small money also wants to work as little as possible and sell it for an extremely high price. Selling maximal ROI is mostly a human thing. Also, there are “big money” developers building higher quality houses at higher prices, just like any other business.
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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…
> Excess solar power generated by ordinary consumers is probably being priced correctly Do you have any evidence for this position? Is this just regulations giving you bad vibes? I’m pretty sure everyone was quite aware the sun doesn’t shine at night whenever the previous rules and regulations were written. Your analysis isn’t breaking new ground.
As the amount of solar increases, the supply during the day goes up, so the daytime price starts going down. Meanwhile the highest demand period is just after sunset, so that's going to be when the price is highest because not only is that the highest demand, that's when solar generation is zero. And it's when people selling solar during the day are trying to buy power back. But now they're selling low and buying high.
It's not clear from the article whether this is just datacenters -- or if that is just the convenient boogeyman. 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.
Electricity usage in N.America / Europe has been static for the last ~20 years.
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As someone with a demand charge, let me disagree. The worst single hour out of 60-70 throughout the month is used and in my market it’s about $19/kw demand. Turn on the AC once during that period, $80. Happen to have to have an oven or microwave going at the same time, you’re probably over $100. For one hour on one day of the month. Once you screw your month, you’re free to do it the rest of the month, but it only ta…
What you have described is an obviously terrible system that doesn’t incentivize lower power consumption. That’s not how it’s going to work in Nevada. It will be the highest 15 minute period of each day, so if you spread out your power usage you have room to game the rates and save money. And if you have a bad day it will only cost you a dollar or two and the next day is fresh. Plus it’s not on top of the total consu…
Doesn't it? Suppose you have a battery system which has access to the current price, so it charges when it's cheap and discharges when it's expensive. Then you don't pay the $19/kWh, you run on batteries then -- or sell at $19/kWh. And thereby turn a profit from installing the battery system, creating the incentive to reduce consumption when the price is high.