"AI data centers on the East Coast are gobbling up so much juice that nonprofit grid operator PJM may be forced to enact rolling blackouts on its customers during both heat waves and exceptionally cold weather just to protect the grid's integrity. These blackouts would impact a staggering 67 million people in 13 states, according to The Wall Street Journal, which will no doubt fan more anger from residential customers and politicians who are already deeply ticked off about the mass construction of AI data centers."
"The grid operator PJM is expecting demand for electricity to grow an average of 4.8 percent per year over the next 10 years, according to the WSJ, largely driven by the construction and running of these data centers, many of which are located in Northern Virginia's "Data Center Alley," which has 153 facilities in the town of Asburn alone."
AI data centers on the East Coast are sharply increasing electricity demand and prompting PJM to consider rolling blackouts during extreme heat and cold to protect grid integrity. The proposed outages could affect about 67 million people across 13 states. PJM projects electricity demand to grow roughly 4.8% per year over the next decade, driven largely by data center construction and operation concentrated in Northern Virginia's "Data Center Alley." National forecasts estimate power demand rising 25% by 2030 and 78% by 2050. New generation is not replacing retiring plants quickly enough, and tech firms resisted voluntary curtailment proposals. Residential customers face outages, higher bills, heavy water use, and local pollution concerns.
Read at Futurism
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]