How AI Data Centers Are Sending Your Power Bill Soaring Wholesale electricity costs as much as 267% more than it did five years ago in areas near data centers. That’s being passed on to customers. “The reliability crisis is here now; it’s not off in the distance somewhere,” said Mark Christie, a former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission who also served as a long-time Virginia regulator. He said that load forecasts — the expected demand for power on electricity grids — are a key factor pushing up costs, driven by the data center interconnection requests. Globally, data centers are expected to consume more than 4% of electricity by 2035, according to BloombergNEF. Put another way: If the facilities were a country they’d rank fourth in electricity use, behind only China, the US and India. Zuckerberg and Altman are the biggest losers ever yet in order for them to become trillionaires, working class people have seen atleast a double in electricity bills. Need to immediately pass legislature in every state to change the categorization of these data centers (and crypto farms) so the public doesn't have to pay. This is an infinitely more important issue than illegals being deported if you're an actual American citizen.
They should pay for the Extra Consumption . . . . PERIOD Rocket River They use it . .. they pay . .. . no welfare handouts for them.
Most large data center uses evaporative cooling. Hot water is pumped to the top of the tower then sprayed to increase the surface area for evaporation. As water evaporates, it carries away heat energy and lowers the temperature of the rest of the water. If unfiltered or salt water is used, the mineral build up would quickly ruin the cooling system. Though some new data centers are moving towards a refrigeration (like your home AC) or direct air cooled system (like water cooled home computer cooler). In those cooling systems, no water would be lost. The trade off is the much higher energy usage. So data centers have to balance energy usage and clean water usage. What makes more sense will depend on the physical location of the data center (temperature, humidity, power availability, large bodies of water etc. ).
Not saying Bloomberg is wrong at all. Data centers are putting upward pressure on energy prices and especially capacity prices. But they are doing some cherrypicking here. "As much as" 267%, meaning they found the single highest priced nodal price to report. "For a single month" meaning it didn't sustain that price month after month, but instead just peaked once. Higher than "five years ago" means they picked an unusually low baseline from 5 years ago to be the comparator to make the jump look as dramatic as possible. "In areas near significant data center activity" means they can't isolate how much of that price increase is attributable to the data center demand.
i am paying about $.15 kwh flat rate in FL, where there is a massive push against data centers. I am looking at Texas exchanges with rates as low as .07 kwh. What is the state with a massive push towards data centers about half my rate where data centers are being contested - by DeSantis.
The 7 cents per kwh price you're seeing probably doesn't include monthly transmission fees. The fees is typically between 5-6 cents per kwh plus $5/month flat fee. So it's a little cheaper than your FL price, but not by much. The recent push against data center from politicians is likely them seeing the winds changing in public sentiment against AI and data center. Just 7 months ago, Greg Abbott was extoling the virtue of new Google data center and AI. https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-google-announce-40-billion-investment-in-texas . Then last month, Abbott recommends new data center regulations and just last week, a ban on data centers in rural neighborhoods. Desantis likely just saw sentiment change earlier than Abbott.
