I keep hearing how everyone’s electric bills are going up with AI data centers near them. Why aren’t the companies paying the bill? Or is it building the infrastructure to accommodate them the issue?
I keep hearing how everyone’s electric bills are going up with AI data centers near them. Why aren’t the companies paying the bill? Or is it building the infrastructure to accommodate them the issue?
I don’t know how wide spread smart meters are in the US, but it should be fairly simple so have an extra tariff on these kind of consumers, or perhaps just tariffs during peak periods.
At least it could be enforced that the surplus heat from data centers had to be reused in some way, could be residental heating or ptx.
Smart meters aren’t necessary for that. We already have different rates for different usage levels. I’d actually worry that this is the problem. I don’t know how rates work for industrial needs but in a lot of things the biggest users can negotiate a discount. As one of the biggest users, are they driving up rates by not only exceeding supply but also paying less? Are your utility regulators looking out for all their customers or just the big ones?
Smart meters are more useful to vary rates by time of day, to help adjust demand for the level of supply