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Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin

(117,834 posts)
Sun Jan 26, 2025, 02:48 PM Sunday

Big Tech wants to plug data centers right into power plants. Utilities say it's not fair

Source: AP

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Looking for a quick fix for their fast-growing electricity diets, tech giants are increasingly looking to strike deals with power plant owners to plug in directly, avoiding a potentially longer and more expensive process of hooking into a fraying electric grid that serves everyone else.

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.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/power-electricity-amazon-microsoft-power-plants-data-centers-grid-f4763f73bc112425e18f30618dff0039

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madville

(7,531 posts)
12. That's what they do in China
Mon Jan 27, 2025, 09:18 AM
Monday

Data centers, artificial intelligence and bitcoin mining have their own power plants in China. Coal, hydro, solar whatever, they have huge power requirements.

Irish_Dem

(62,144 posts)
3. The billionaires will probably get their way.
Sun Jan 26, 2025, 03:05 PM
Sunday

Power centers paid for by the public, but the public waits at the end of the line.

dickthegrouch

(3,774 posts)
4. When the middle class that designs and uses those data centers
Sun Jan 26, 2025, 03:05 PM
Sunday

No longer exists because of tax cuts and entitlements to the rich, who is going to need the data????
Or when everyone near that plant freezes to death in a severe winter storm, or gets cooked in severe weather during the summer because there’s no electricity for heaters or A/C respectively, who is going to tend all those useless computers?

Let’s have a little planning beyond our noses before making stupid decisions.

Autumn

(46,997 posts)
8. Not a problem. Utilities can and probaly will raise our rates to pay for big tech
Sun Jan 26, 2025, 03:10 PM
Sunday

to plug in their data centers. They will convice the utilities that it's unfair to make big power users help pay for the grid.

We are nothing.

hueymahl

(2,698 posts)
10. We need a lot more power plants
Sun Jan 26, 2025, 10:47 PM
Sunday

Nuclear, preferably. Gen 4 reactors, like pebblebed reactors, should be fast-tracked for construction.

Response to Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin (Original post)

mathematic

(1,542 posts)
13. A producer and consumer want to cut out the middleman and thats... bad?
Mon Jan 27, 2025, 11:49 AM
Monday

I suppose if you think so you should remember that next time you hear somebody complaining about the middleman taking a cut and doing nothing.

The actual solution to this "problem" is to build more electricity generation. It's not to give utility companies free money for doing nothing.

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