Comment by sunshinesnacks
2 hours ago
Capacity shortfalls and needs to conserve (i.e., asking customers to reduce usage) are not necessarily 1:1 with rate increases and overall electricity costs. Especially in the short term.
In other words, large “base loads” like data centers could both reduce the average power bill AND contribute to capacity shortages and load shedding.
I work in industrial manufacturing and automation, several of my customers (those running steel foundries, aluminum die casting, plastic recycling and extrusion, and other power-intensive processes) represent a sizeable fraction of the utility usage in the small towns in which they're located.
They often have an individual contract with the utility and participate in load regulation: when you need liquefy a few tons of steel, those heaters have a lot of thermal inertia. If A/C loads are high they'll turn the power down, if wind output is high, they'll turn it up, and so on.
Do data centers participate in the same sort of dynamic pricing and power adjustment? I understand that they're spinning up and powering down instances on demand, and that those demands are somewhat outside of their control, but are they able (and willing, and desirous of reducing their electric bills) to dynamically adjust compute in response to utility rates?
It’s a hard to answer because each grid will treat it differently. My own experience when trying to track some of this data down, DCs are largely having to do the same and that’s why a lot of the buildout includes behind the meter generation to make up for it.
There is not a good picture in aggregate though so it creates all kinds of narratives.
The gas-powered generators are what makes a data center unpleasant to live by.
A lot of the problem right now is simply that new massive data centers are crying about being forced to.... pay their fair way.
They are mad that they aren't getting special treatment. They want to be treated better than the aluminum smelting plant.