News AI is eating up Pennsylvania's power, governor threatens to pull state from the grid — new plants aren't being built fast enough to keep up with de...

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Spiking demand is sending energy bills skyrocketing, while the governor threatens to pull the state from the grid.

AI is eating up Pennsylvania's power, governor threatens to pull state from the grid — new plants aren't being built fast enough to keep up with de... : Read more
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Why do regular consumers have to pay an egregious amount for energy bills because of AI? This rise in costs has been going on since covid and we all know that was years ago. It seems to me my home state of Pennsylvania can't get their act together!
 
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punkncat said:
But hey, let's all be forced to get an electric car!
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The problem with grid capacity are felt during peak demand periods. Electric cars can be programmed to charge overnight, specifically during low-demand hours.

In fact, in some instances you can even turn around and sell some of the power in your batteries back to the grid, during peak periods, thus helping to alleviate the problem rather than making matters worse.

Does that make them a net positive? I don't know, but they're certainly not as dire as your comment implies.
 
bit_user said:
The problem with grid capacity are felt during peak demand periods. Electric cars can be programmed to charge overnight, specifically during low-demand hours.

In fact, in some instances you can even turn around and sell some of the power in your batteries back to the grid, during peak periods, thus helping to alleviate the problem rather than making matters worse.

Does that make them a net positive? I don't know, but they're certainly not as dire as your comment implies.
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Considering the small number of electric cars as opposed to legislating everyone have one there is no way to logically calculate the actual load on the grid outside estimates. Since we can surmise by the post and other poignant information coming to light about the shortcomings in our power grid as a country, and additionally the world, it would seem the conclusion would not be good at current levels. Nor will this be good when we consider the time to build new power plants, of a type that aren't just as bad as ICE vehicles in light of cost and power source, alongside the infrastructure improvements that will have to be made, costs passed on to consumers lamented above...time spent as victims at random charging stations across the country notwithstanding...(off subject, a straw man as one poster might say).

The fact that many localities cannot supply clean power without brown-out under current conditions tends to lend to how DIRE the situation actually is. Alongside that let us consider the issues such as what happened in Texas a few years ago with the cold and people having no power due to demand. Add millions of recharging battery packs on top of that.
 
punkncat said:
Considering the small number of electric cars as opposed to legislating everyone have one there is no way to logically calculate the actual load on the grid outside estimates. Since we can surmise by the post and other poignant information coming to light about the shortcomings in our power grid as a country, and additionally the world, it would seem the conclusion would not be good at current levels. Nor will this be good when we consider the time to build new power plants, of a type that aren't just as bad as ICE vehicles in light of cost and power source, alongside the infrastructure improvements that will have to be made, costs passed on to consumers lamented above...time spent as victims at random charging stations across the country notwithstanding...(off subject, a straw man as one poster might say).

The fact that many localities cannot supply clean power without brown-out under current conditions tends to lend to how DIRE the situation actually is. Alongside that let us consider the issues such as what happened in Texas a few years ago with the cold and people having no power due to demand. Add millions of recharging battery packs on top of that.
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So the amount of power cited in the article that needs to be added is 30GW for these datacenters in the coverage area of the power provider. A standard L2 home charger pulls ~11.5kW maximum so if we use that figure the amount of power for just the new datacenters is the equivalent of charging over 2.6m cars at the same time.

While the grid is certainly a problem, and has been for decades, the rate of actual electric car adoption is nothing in comparison. So if you're going to be pointing fingers at consumption problems you've got the wrong target.
 
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It seems PJM or whoever is planning these datacenter projects did not forecast or mitigate the impact on their local electrical grid. It almost seems like they underbid without any consideration of the infrastructure required. Crazy.

Unfortunately, the dismemberment of the energy infrastructure portion of the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden's green energy bill, is only going to make it worse. While solar, wind, and battery are not the entire solution, they definitely could help.

Individually people could invest in home solar and with tax credit, it helped the payoff rate considerably. I have solar and the pay-off and savings are real, despite what people are often told.

Further, investments in improving our national grid infrastructure could help. As part of the goal was sharing electricity across states and electricity producers.
 
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Admin said:
Spiking demand is sending energy bills skyrocketing, while the governor threatens to pull the state from the grid.

AI is eating up Pennsylvania's power, governor threatens to pull state from the grid — new plants aren't being built fast enough to keep up with de... : Read more
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Dear governor, yes please do this. And then immediately ban all ai use in PA. I'm tired of having this garbage jammed down my throat at work. I'd love it if you made it illegal for companies in PA to use AI in any capacity.
 
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Notton said:
Pennsylvania is a net exporter of electricity, isn't it?
Can't they just jack up the export price by.... 1000% or something?
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It's part of a multi-state grid, which I'm sure involves pricing agreements. So, I don't know if the idea of separating from the grid would actually be a clean break, or just enable them to renegotiate the terms of power sharing.

Grids are nice, when they work. If the grid does indeed come apart, it'll probably be worse for just about everyone than before these datacenters started slurping up so much power.
 
Robutts said:
Why don't they just build these things in the desert. Supply their own solar
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although it sounds like a great idea for its sunlight exposure the desert's a horrible place for solar panels because of how dry and Dusty it is. solar panels are wildly inefficient with just the smallest layer of dust obstructing the sunlight. theyd be buried in sand or soil in no time. they would need cleaned multiple times a day just to run at base efficiency. for anybody out there considering it, think long and hard about where you place your solar panels if they're on your roof they're going to be much harder to clean when you need to.
 
I am a retired Nuclear Engineer, and I worked in IT for 52 years.
If AI is consuming so much electricity from the Electric Grid in Pa, that Pa is being strained then something is wrong. My first thoughts is ... AI, or what is being called AI, may not be what it claims to be. Instead of the Gov pulling PA from the Electric Grid, Pa needs to dump AI off the Pa electric grid. For AI to be using that much electricity, something is terribly wrong. If AI is consuming that much electricity, it must be extremely badly designed, or what is being called AI, is NOT AI. The problem could be in the design of AI, or at least what is being called AI. That is nuts. Pa needs to dump AI off their electric grid, and tell the AI developers, to re-design their product, and make it practical. If AI is putting a large strain on the electric grid in PA, then something is terribly wrong, and what is being called AI, is definitely NOT AI, and could be a serious dangerous threat to Pa.
 
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Another delusional governor. "Build more power plants." It takes 10 years to license, permit, litigate and build power plants. An AI server farm can be online in 12 months. An upgrade to a newer power hog AI server farm even faster.

The only way to power AI (and EV) demand is to restart all those nasty coal fired power plants we just spent 10 years shutting down. Weelll, or go the Microsoft route and restart the site of the worst nuclear disaster in the western hemisphere using 1960's vintage reactor designs.
Maybe coal isn't so bad... Think of all those quality mining jobs in the PA and WVA mountains that will be created!
 
LeGen_NMO said:
The only way to power AI (and EV) demand
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See post # 10. This ain't about EVs.

LeGen_NMO said:
Maybe coal isn't so bad... Think of all those quality mining jobs in the PA and WVA mountains that will be created!
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The US coal industry is poorly-regulated and large numbers of miners need to retire early, due to a debilitating lung condition called silicosis. The jobs pay relatively well, but I wouldn't call them "quality". Renewable energy projects would actually create more jobs. So, if job creation is your goal, then coal isn't even an effective way to do that.
 
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