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Texas grid flags risks as data centers, crypto sites fail voltage tests

reuters.com

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Re: Texas grid flags risks as data centers, crypto sites fail voltage tests

#21

Post by ilaksh »

This almost seems like a straw man to me. Isn't the much larger problem the actual increased energy usage and making sure that all of this massive extra cost doesn't just get dumped on consumers?

I am a huge proponent of AI actually, but very suspicious that "financiers" are suddenly creating what amounts to an energy tax by finding legal ways to sneak extra fees or rates into our electricity bills to cover build out and commercial usage costs.

But as far as smoothing out demand, my (admittedly a layperson) theory is that we need to force them to adapt more solar and wind and at the same time more facilities for handling the variable production from that. Such as more large batteries and a shift to large scale long term storage of renewable fuel like hydrogen or other fuels produced directly from renewable sources.

If you have a large production and storage of renewable fuel, then maybe you can build that in such a way that it can handle significant input variations that could include excess grid power.

Re: Texas grid flags risks as data centers, crypto sites fail voltage tests

#22

Post by onionisafruit »

threwrfaway wrote: post #18
onionisafruit wrote: post #14

I’m curious how this works for other large consumers. Do they have some kind of artificial load that lets them gradually reduce consumption instead of doing it all at once?

If you're large enough your connection to the grid is a negotiation with an engineering team. The utility will force you to put equipment to correct for power factor ( massive capacitor bank), resistive load, etc. The utility also charges commercial users for apparent power (includes reactive power, or that sloshes around setting up a steady state), as opposed to just real power charged to residential users. EDIT: in…

That’s interesting. For the rest of us I guess it’s just the law if large numbers that our air conditioners don’t cycle off at the same time

Re: Texas grid flags risks as data centers, crypto sites fail voltage tests

#23

Post by MBCook »

dpark wrote: post #13
toomuchtodo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ban private fossil generators above a certain size without a license. You can just do things. They can build as much solar and batteries as they want. https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/google-confirms-1... https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/google-announces-...

SpaceX is running a bunch of “portable”, high pollution gas generators in Memphis, TN specifically to get around the regulation you’re describing. Elon definitely got the “you can just do things” memo.

It’s what I was thinking of when I said “lots of industrial generators” too, but I couldn’t remember where it was.

Re: Texas grid flags risks as data centers, crypto sites fail voltage tests

#24

Post by jeffbee »

ilaksh wrote: post #21

This almost seems like a straw man to me. Isn't the much larger problem the actual increased energy usage and making sure that all of this massive extra cost doesn't just get dumped on consumers? I am a huge proponent of AI actually, but very suspicious that "financiers" are suddenly creating what amounts to an energy tax by finding legal ways to sneak extra fees or rates into our electricity bills to cover build out…

Texas is the standing proof that "making sure that all of this massive extra cost doesn't just get dumped on consumers" is not a problem. Texas has the most load, the most marginal load added every year, and the cheapest retail power. Load grew 15% in the 5 years to 2024, and retail prices fell by 1¢.

Re: Texas grid flags risks as data centers, crypto sites fail voltage tests

#25

Post by mindslight »

threwrfaway wrote: post #15

How about an across the board $1/W hook up fee for new customers? Thats about the price of installed capacity per watt. New house with 200 A panel an assumed 30% utilization rate? $3600. New data center with 80% utilization rates at 100MW? $80 million dollars. New 10 GW data center? That'll be $8 billion. It's outrageous that I'm paying an extra fee to export energy to a neighboring state to power a datacenter.

Your math on the house seems off by a factor of 4? But 30% utilization seems high, as that would be a $2k/mo electric bill at 20 cents/kWh.

Reframing what you're saying, that would be a connection fee that worked out to just under 12 cents per kWh used for the first year, which seems both somewhat reasonable but also probably not going to move the needle much on the large deployments?

Re: Texas grid flags risks as data centers, crypto sites fail voltage tests

#26

Post by threwrfaway »

For those who dont know why this is important:

The loads are slowing down the generators that are burning a well metered amount of fuel to stay at 60Hz. This is a delicate balance since the phase angle must also be spot on.

If a generator and the local line disagree on f, phase or V, you have a short circuit.

If you lose a large amount of load, your generator will spin up with the excess fuel until the control system re-establishes the right amount of fuel.

But now your generators are out of sync! No worry, for small disturbances the dissipative losses sync everything up like syncros on a manual transmission.

But the disturance cant be too big!

Rotating machines are big and heavy, so the first line of defense is their inertia. But this is a finite (and precious) resource.

Contrary to belief, renewables, or generally speaking DC, makes things this stability problem worse. They generate large amounts of power while providing no inertia.

You'd think it isn't a big deal since the DC-AC converter can just synthesize whatever is needed. Heck just keep it rigid at 60 Hz with no phase change.

Well the later doesn't work - the rest of the grid is no longer at that phase and frequency so you got yourself a short.

Furthermore, the DC-AC converter, despite their manufacturers' promise, has no good way to establish what f and phase it should be at during a disturbance (and these magic codes are closed source, believe it or not)

Anywho, a large enough loss of load causes the grid to enters into unstable oscillations, causing protective relays to trip causing a zipper effect where the grid goes down.

Now restart will take a few days depending on the energy mix (fastest for hydro heavy)

Long story short - this is not a trivial problem, and the data-centers can't be allowed to just dump load willy nilly.

EDIT: made it clear that the grid killing disturbance is not caused by renewables; not exclusively anyway. Everyone has to play nice or the grid goes down.

Re: Texas grid flags risks as data centers, crypto sites fail voltage tests

#27

Post by HWR_14 »

threwrfaway wrote: post #15

How about an across the board $1/W hook up fee for new customers? Thats about the price of installed capacity per watt. New house with 200 A panel an assumed 30% utilization rate? $3600. New data center with 80% utilization rates at 100MW? $80 million dollars. New 10 GW data center? That'll be $8 billion. It's outrageous that I'm paying an extra fee to export energy to a neighboring state to power a datacenter.

Texas has an independent energy grid, so are not exporting energy to them.

Re: Texas grid flags risks as data centers, crypto sites fail voltage tests

#28

Post by threwrfaway »

mindslight wrote: post #25
threwrfaway wrote: post #15

How about an across the board $1/W hook up fee for new customers? Thats about the price of installed capacity per watt. New house with 200 A panel an assumed 30% utilization rate? $3600. New data center with 80% utilization rates at 100MW? $80 million dollars. New 10 GW data center? That'll be $8 billion. It's outrageous that I'm paying an extra fee to export energy to a neighboring state to power a datacenter.

Your math on the house seems off by a factor of 4? But 30% utilization seems high, as that would be a $2k/mo electric bill at 20 cents/kWh. Reframing what you're saying, that would be a connection fee that worked out to just under 12 cents per kWh used for the first year, which seems both somewhat reasonable but also probably not going to move the needle much on the large deployments?

I guessed what the utilization factor for a house was, purposely going for a very high number to show that it wouldn't add too much to the house.

Note, In proposing a one time fee, on the capacity to generate power, not the energy.

Re: Texas grid flags risks as data centers, crypto sites fail voltage tests

#29

Post by threwrfaway »

HWR_14 wrote: post #27
threwrfaway wrote: post #15

How about an across the board $1/W hook up fee for new customers? Thats about the price of installed capacity per watt. New house with 200 A panel an assumed 30% utilization rate? $3600. New data center with 80% utilization rates at 100MW? $80 million dollars. New 10 GW data center? That'll be $8 billion. It's outrageous that I'm paying an extra fee to export energy to a neighboring state to power a datacenter.

Texas has an independent energy grid, so are not exporting energy to them.

My rant was generally about what ought to be done to data centers.

In fact, I don't live near Texas. My state is having me finance a power line that will increase demand for our electricity.

Re: Texas grid flags risks as data centers, crypto sites fail voltage tests

#30

Post by mindslight »

threwrfaway wrote: post #28
mindslight wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your math on the house seems off by a factor of 4? But 30% utilization seems high, as that would be a $2k/mo electric bill at 20 cents/kWh. Reframing what you're saying, that would be a connection fee that worked out to just under 12 cents per kWh used for the first year, which seems both somewhat reasonable but also probably not going to move the needle much on the large deployments?

I guessed what the utilization factor for a house was, purposely going for a very high number to show that it wouldn't add too much to the house. Note, In proposing a one time fee, on the capacity to generate power, not the energy.

Yes, but using the 30% utilization factor I get 200A * 240V * 30% = 14.4kW , meaning a $14400 connection fee rather than $3600 ? $3600 would be a 7.5% utilization factor.

And yes, I got the one time fee aspect. My point is that if you're basing this off of expected utilization (rather than say the size of the service regardless of how much energy is used), and that expected utilization is roughly correct, then that one time fee can be thought of as amortized cost per unit energy over a specified amount of time. And that cost isn't even that high if amortized over a year.

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