AI Data Centers, Desperate for Electricity, Are Building Their Own Power Plants
There are so many reasons to support "Consumer Regulated Electricity" (CRE):
- Most tech titans would be happy to trade their DIY sourcing for the ability to plug into the electric grid.
- ...in some locations, data centers won’t be able to plug into the power grid until the 2030s because of the sheer backlog of projects and the fact that the nation’s high-voltage electric wires are running out of room.
- “We’re [Digital Realty, a data center builder] not in the power business,” he said. “We’re building these bridges to allow the cavalry to come up with the transmission or other pieces of the puzzle that they may need to provide power.”
- Orders for transformers began climbing just as global supply chains became snarled at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to data from energy consulting firm Wood Mackenzie. Data-center demand for the equipment is up 10-fold since then. It’s expected to quintuple next year.
- “I don’t want to play Mother, May I? Can you generate power for me? Is it going to take seven years to connect to the grid? I need a gigawatt of power for AI,” Stitt [Oklahoma’s governor] mused in an interview.
- Hugh Wynne, an analyst with Sector & Sovereign Research, predicts the dearth of construction will limit data-center growth.
- Data centers and the companies giving them a power boost are preparing for a supply crunch that could last a while.
- Mark McDougal, co-founder of Joule Capital Partners, plans to use Caterpillar equipment with battery storage at a huge data-center project in Utah located on part of a commercial farm that his family has owned for decades. It’s designed so that it can connect to the grid later, McDougal said, “but we’re not relying on that.”
CRE is state policy that would allow for the creation of new, independent, competitive, and large-scale utilities that could move faster, be far more innovative, and unleash the power of competition to solve these problems. Contact us to learn more about CRE and follow us right here on LinkedIn.