Comment by switch007

1 year ago

Is data center electricity usage making electricity cheaper or more expensive for the domestic user? Or neither

9 comments

switch007

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Ekaros  1 year ago

Probably it depends, on when and where. In areas with excess existing capacity like hydro it could periodically increase the prices. In other areas it could develop power infra and generation capacity making it cheaper.

paganel  1 year ago

By the law of economics it makes it more expensive because now the 75-years old pensioner has to compete on the free market against the likes of Meta, Amazon or Alphabet for access to the same money-exchanged finite resources (electric power, in this case). More demand generates a bigger price. Of course that these big corporations and their fans/share-owners will come up and say that said bigger demand is more than offset by the bigger offer being made available only because of said big corporations, but that’s just bs.

  • IshKebab  1 year ago

    Electric power is not a finite resource though, so classical supply and demand would say the cost goes down - because Meta needs more power, people build more power stations, the power station builders (solar, wind, nuclear, etc.) sell more so they can benefit from economies of scale and they put their prices down.

    • paganel  1 year ago

      > Electric power is not a finite resource though

      Electric power is most definitely a finite resource, otherwise we wouldn't have had this conversation and we would have all lived in a Startrek-like utopia.

      > so they can benefit from economies of scale and they put their prices down.

      That is the bs I was calling out against. I'm saying that because Meta needs more power then Meta will pay whatever will need in order to get access to that power, in effect out-competing those domestic users. Those power stations and the like would have already been built absent Meta's needs in order to server those domestic users and existing industrial users, you're saying that the incoming Meta new demand would be offset by the new offer (new power stations) generated by said new demand which is, again, the bs I was calling out against.

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