This is in Virgina, which passed the Virginia Clean Economy Act in 2020. This mandated that Dominion (the power company) transition to 100% renewable energy by 2045. Personally, I think this is a good thing in the long run, but in the short run, it means that Dominion has had to invest a lot in building out renewable projects that haven't come online yet.
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab recently did a statistical analysis [1] and found that the majority of the rate increase in Virginia was attributable to this, and that load growth had a mitigating effect on price increases.
And if you look at their overall analysis, the places in the US where electricty costs are rising the fastest are generally not the same places where lots of new datacenters are being built. It's easy to blame datacenters, but there are a lot of factors at play here.
Data centers typically have local backup power and are among the first to be dropped from the grid under strain, after the power company tells them to be ready to switch to backup. And yes, those generators do increase noise pollution a lot and air pollution a little while running.
Which incidentally ties into that one Vantage data center in VA keeps making the news - they aren't connected to the grid at all, so they're effectively running their backup generators 24/7.
The text of the article indicates that the county government sent this message to all government facilities, but I suppose that doesn't make for quite as sexy a headline and a public school is technically a government facility.
I appreciate 404 media's mission but isn't there enough stupid shit existing naturally in the world for them to illuminate that we don't need to do this?
ever been in a room of people sitting in cubicles where the lights are controlled by motion sensor to automatically turn off the lights after a set period of no motion? fun times. it took way longer to get that switch replaced than it should have
I think the issues are exacerbated by the US going from "regular growth in electricity generation" for decades to "dead flat" for the last ~2 decades. I think we're finding generation isn't just a switch you turn on and reap the benefits of overnight if it's not what you were already planning on doing https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/e...
Part of solving that may be in what the article touches on - how to get the generation built before the DC shows up rather than as a promise after.
Some of the data centers now run disconnected on gas turbines 24/7, which is better for electricity prices but they can be big nuisance for people living nearby.
You want to use a lot of electricity? Great! We sell electricity. We will need cash in advance to handle some upgrades, rather than passing those costs on to other rate payers.
Interestingly, San Francisco has built no more of these AI datacenters and has seen a rate hike larger than that over the last few years. If we could at least get a few more datacenters that would be nice considering the rate hikes approved here.
That's because San Francisco subsidizes the rest of the state, PG&E is a state-wide utility. San Francisco is attempting to run its own utility, but is meeting resistance from PG&E and the parts of the state SF subsidizes.
First of all, the grid is interconnected. Some random city building an AI datacenter could absolutely trigger price increases in a different part of the state. Second of all, Novva Data Centers is in fact building a $500m campus. In addition to all that is that the war against Iran is causing electricity prices to spike basically everywhere. PG&E is also currently modernizing its grid and doing wildfire hardening across the state. The solar subsidies has also meant that grid subsidization costs have been shifted onto non-solar customers.
I love California and occasionally think about moving there. But the cost of living considerations bring me back to reality. Despite all its problems, it's difficult to leave Texas due to the low cost of living (and HEB!)
Virginia (Dominion) electric rates went up dramatically, and are now in the same rough price band as 29 other states, because they were well below average. Important context, in my humble opinion.
In much the same way that letting a fart out makes sense even when you're in a hurricane.
The list they give is overwhelmingly dominated by one item:
“Turn off your lights when leaving your workspace, including when you leave for the day. Turn off your computers/laptops at the end of each workday. If your workspace has windows, adjust the blinds to manage heat from sunlight. Unplug any appliances, chargers, or other electrical items when they are not in use. Please limit use of (or refrain altogether from using) space heaters. A typical space heater alone can cost the county from $150 to $300 per year in electricity costs.”
Lights, these days, are going to be in the order of 10 W. A space heater, 1000-3000.
$20 of AI tokens over a month? Probably somewhere between, on average, 40-320 W, depending on how you weight the cost of training and which recent-ish model you're using.
Yes, absolutely. This memo implies that with the same measures they could have saved 80% of the amount, regardless of the rate change. If that is significant they should have done this long ago.
This is in Virgina, which passed the Virginia Clean Economy Act in 2020. This mandated that Dominion (the power company) transition to 100% renewable energy by 2045. Personally, I think this is a good thing in the long run, but in the short run, it means that Dominion has had to invest a lot in building out renewable projects that haven't come online yet.
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab recently did a statistical analysis [1] and found that the majority of the rate increase in Virginia was attributable to this, and that load growth had a mitigating effect on price increases.
And if you look at their overall analysis, the places in the US where electricty costs are rising the fastest are generally not the same places where lots of new datacenters are being built. It's easy to blame datacenters, but there are a lot of factors at play here.
[1] https://emp.lbl.gov/publications/factors-influencing-recent-...
Data centers typically have local backup power and are among the first to be dropped from the grid under strain, after the power company tells them to be ready to switch to backup. And yes, those generators do increase noise pollution a lot and air pollution a little while running.
Which incidentally ties into that one Vantage data center in VA keeps making the news - they aren't connected to the grid at all, so they're effectively running their backup generators 24/7.
The text of the article indicates that the county government sent this message to all government facilities, but I suppose that doesn't make for quite as sexy a headline and a public school is technically a government facility.
I appreciate 404 media's mission but isn't there enough stupid shit existing naturally in the world for them to illuminate that we don't need to do this?
> I appreciate 404 media's mission but isn't there enough stupid shit existing naturally in the world
Like 37 data centres in a small rural county?
If everyone turned off their lights 100% of the time they left their workstation, they could power those additional data centers for about one second.
Billionaries are willing to have us make that sacrifice!
Just use smart lights that feed video into an llm to check if lights should shut down.
not to mention you'll get much farther, faster & easier with timers on the lights than some sort of 100% voluntary participation dream.
ever been in a room of people sitting in cubicles where the lights are controlled by motion sensor to automatically turn off the lights after a set period of no motion? fun times. it took way longer to get that switch replaced than it should have
"Who needs public schools anyway? I pay my kid's teachers salary directly."
I think the issues are exacerbated by the US going from "regular growth in electricity generation" for decades to "dead flat" for the last ~2 decades. I think we're finding generation isn't just a switch you turn on and reap the benefits of overnight if it's not what you were already planning on doing https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/e...
Part of solving that may be in what the article touches on - how to get the generation built before the DC shows up rather than as a promise after.
The ~spice~ inference must flow.
Some of the data centers now run disconnected on gas turbines 24/7, which is better for electricity prices but they can be big nuisance for people living nearby.
It is also often a violation of the Clean Air Act but we don't have good regulation in place to actually hold them accountable
In more ways than one: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/feb/13/elon-mus...
excess pollution and noise are more than a nuisance
Maybe the county could just ask its employees to work from home so that its office electricity bill goes down to zero. A win-win solution!
You want to use a lot of electricity? Great! We sell electricity. We will need cash in advance to handle some upgrades, rather than passing those costs on to other rate payers.
Interestingly, San Francisco has built no more of these AI datacenters and has seen a rate hike larger than that over the last few years. If we could at least get a few more datacenters that would be nice considering the rate hikes approved here.
That's because San Francisco subsidizes the rest of the state, PG&E is a state-wide utility. San Francisco is attempting to run its own utility, but is meeting resistance from PG&E and the parts of the state SF subsidizes.
public infrastructure should be owned by the public
First of all, the grid is interconnected. Some random city building an AI datacenter could absolutely trigger price increases in a different part of the state. Second of all, Novva Data Centers is in fact building a $500m campus. In addition to all that is that the war against Iran is causing electricity prices to spike basically everywhere. PG&E is also currently modernizing its grid and doing wildfire hardening across the state. The solar subsidies has also meant that grid subsidization costs have been shifted onto non-solar customers.
Well I think the problem there is called “welcome to California.”
I love California and occasionally think about moving there. But the cost of living considerations bring me back to reality. Despite all its problems, it's difficult to leave Texas due to the low cost of living (and HEB!)
I might argue that we already have data centers, we just call then Colo Facilities.
I'd imagine your normal Colo facility uses a lot less power than an AI data center.
Unplug the data centers instead.
Virginia (Dominion) electric rates went up dramatically, and are now in the same rough price band as 29 other states, because they were well below average. Important context, in my humble opinion.
We can't leave money on the table for all those below average prices - so let's raise them all to the average... oh wait
Do we scale back AI slop for a few days or pull power back from schools? Easy, kids can suffer, give them some ice water.
The AI bubble can’t pop soon enough.
Maybe it would help remove unless and harmful tech from schools. Books don't need batteries.
Conserving energy makes sense regardless of nearby data center electricity consumption.
In much the same way that letting a fart out makes sense even when you're in a hurricane.
The list they give is overwhelmingly dominated by one item:
Lights, these days, are going to be in the order of 10 W. A space heater, 1000-3000.
$20 of AI tokens over a month? Probably somewhere between, on average, 40-320 W, depending on how you weight the cost of training and which recent-ish model you're using.
True. But asking schools to conserve electricity while encouraging data centers to waste it is perverse.
Yes, absolutely. This memo implies that with the same measures they could have saved 80% of the amount, regardless of the rate change. If that is significant they should have done this long ago.