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.
Big tech can run their own power plants, and leave the grid for the public.
Another option would be to give the corporations priority, but then all other power is supplemented (almost free) to everyone else.
But the real solution is to setup your own solar panels and be self sufficient. Or a wind turbine if applicable.
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?
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You have to read between the lines.
“Energy emergency” = “pump even more oil out of the ground.”
b.b.bbbut ‘corporations are people, too’
Yes, but which of the two legal genders are they?
/s
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 😮💨🤬
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.
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.
