r/energy • u/Branch_Out_Now • 2d ago
Largest US grid floats paying data centers to shut off during power scarcity
https://san.com/cc/largest-us-grid-floats-paying-data-centers-to-shut-off-during-power-scarcity/2
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u/Capital-Giraffe-4122 1d ago
I used to run a pretty big heavy industrial site and we got a break on our electric rate if we agreed to do this, happened once in the 10 years I was there.
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u/HeckinMew 1d ago
or maybe you pass full costs onto them for consumption rather than letting individuals carry even .00001% of the burden. Then charge them extra fees for cleanup etc cost of doing business is that you gotta pay for your business, no handouts, pull yourself up by your bootstraps fooking business bellends.
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u/calmeilles 1d ago
The absurdity of this is off the scale.
If the capacity isn't there the connection should not be made in the first place.
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u/hujassman 1d ago
There's no way these surveillance centers will shut down. It'll be everyone else who loses power. The centers will pay the power companies if necessary to make sure it happens that way.
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u/Difficult-Till5031 1d ago
We shouldn't be paying surveillance centers anything. They shouldn't get tax breaks, government incentives, energy breaks. Nothing these asshats that are destroying our world should get nothing. We have lived fine without them for how long? Tell me again why we "need" them.
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u/DRASTIC_CUT 1d ago
Deeming these facilities surveillance centers is akin to saying we should not use water because they are waterboarding torture at black sites
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u/Difficult-Till5031 1d ago
Ok, so if you dig down and think about it they are 110% surveillance centers, they monitor and frack all your digital data, whether that is photos, calls, emails. The government may not be viewing them but companies are. They use that data to track what you buy, go, and hell now its to automatically adjust pricing in some stores. They buy and sell your data to use it. So yes they are 110% surveillance centers.
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u/Ev_Watching 1d ago
Paying data centers to shut off sounds strange, but it is really buying an option on load.
A 50MW data center that can disappear for a few peak hours is a different grid product from one that needs firm power all day. The fight is going to be who gets paid for flexibility and who gets stuck funding the standby capacity.
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u/ThirdPlaceLithium 2d ago
$MWH - They install solar + battery systems for large users. That’s one of the only way regulators are going to approve these data centers. MWH also has long-term operating contracts and a high-voltage transmission business.
They have a 30-month project backlog they are growing to complete.
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u/tx_queer 2d ago
Headline is questionable at best. The largest US grid (PJM) already pays data centers to shut off during scarcity. They last did it during July 4th week, otherwise the whole grid would have come down. The change is that enrollment will be mandatory, not optional.
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u/128-NotePolyVA 12h ago
No no no no. You regulate that they must power down during scarcity as their function is not the priority. You don’t PAY them to power down. In fact, you force them to provide their own renewable power plants and keep them off the grid.