Giant Data Centers Put New Strain on California's Power Grid

"California is a major hub for data centers - the facilities that store and transmit much of the internet. But just how much these power-hungry operations affect the state's energy use, climate and public health remains an open question for researchers. A new report released this week by the environmental think tank Next 10 and a UC Riverside researcher attempts to quantify that impact - but its authors say the report is only an estimate without harder data from the centers themselves."

""We are just making these reports pretty much in the dark - since there's almost zero information," said Shaolei Ren, an AI researcher at UC Riverside and co-author of the report. "We have extremely little information about data centers in California." Ren and his coauthors conclude that between 2019 and 2023, electricity use and carbon emissions by California data centers nearly doubled, while on-site water consumption slightly more than doubled. Much of the increases were attributable to the electricity required to run artificial intelligence computations."

"The report underscores a growing tension in the industry: advocates who support clean energy and experts who study energy demand agree the days of steady, flat energy use at data centers are over, but there's far less consensus on just how sharply electricity demand will climb. "In very simple terms, a lot of the uncertainty comes from: what is our life going to look like with AI in the next five years, 10 years, 20 years - how integrated is it going to become?" said Maia Leroy, a Sacramento-based advocate who focuses on clean energy and the grid. "Are we reaching a point where the use is going to plateau, or is it going to continue?" Experts say more transparency is essential to better understand what resources data "

California data centers experienced large increases in resource use between 2019 and 2023. Electricity use and carbon emissions nearly doubled in that period, and on-site water consumption slightly more than doubled. Much of the growth in electricity demand is attributable to artificial intelligence computations. Estimates of energy, water and health impacts are constrained by scarce operational data from the centers themselves. Uncertainty about future demand hinges on how deeply AI becomes integrated into daily life and industry. Greater transparency from data centers is essential to assess environmental, grid and public health implications accurately.

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