New Data Centers Set to Stress U.S. Electric Grid Further
For the past couple of years, assessments of the national electric grid’s ability to deliver power during peak demand periods, such as heat waves and cold snaps, have shown increasing risk for blackouts.
The North American Electric Reliability Corporation, the nation’s grid watchdog, finds the main cause is retirements of coal plants without enough natural gas plants coming online.
Need more electricity? How about lots of natural gas powered and nuclear-powered generating plants? Nah says the Democrats. we got a better solution, we're gonna need more rats for the tread mills, so Biden is looking into importing 500 million from China and sending hunter to negotiate. 10% for the big guy...Chah Ching
Yours truly manages data centers. While they are power hogs, they shift power load away from business/retail/residential areas, which often overlap. By placing that heavy power draw in zones specifically designed for such loads, they help stabilize the power supply to everyone else. Instead of placing computing functions in commercial office buildings that often don't have 3-phase power, the data centers are normally placed very close to major substations. This takes unplanned load away and reduces brown-outs for most consumers. And since they are purpose built, the data centers are much more efficient consumers of power than are traditional office buildings. This has also helped in the remote work phenomena by freeing businesses from the need for office buildings all together.
Meantime, our clueless leader wants to blow up and eliminate hydroelectric dams in the NW due to some impact the dams supposedly are having on some sorta fish. Sounds pretty fishy to me!
Just up the road from me...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.henricocitizen.com/articles/conceptual-plan-shows-13-data-centers-on-622-acre-sandston-site/
Need more electricity? How about lots of natural gas powered and nuclear-powered generating plants? Nah says the Democrats. we got a better solution, we're gonna need more rats for the tread mills, so Biden is looking into importing 500 million from China and sending hunter to negotiate. 10% for the big guy...Chah Ching
ReplyDeleteYours truly manages data centers. While they are power hogs, they shift power load away from business/retail/residential areas, which often overlap. By placing that heavy power draw in zones specifically designed for such loads, they help stabilize the power supply to everyone else. Instead of placing computing functions in commercial office buildings that often don't have 3-phase power, the data centers are normally placed very close to major substations. This takes unplanned load away and reduces brown-outs for most consumers. And since they are purpose built, the data centers are much more efficient consumers of power than are traditional office buildings. This has also helped in the remote work phenomena by freeing businesses from the need for office buildings all together.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the average load on one of these ?
Delete+ 1 megawatt or higher ?
Meantime, our clueless leader wants to blow up and eliminate hydroelectric dams in the NW due to some impact the dams supposedly are having on some sorta fish.
ReplyDeleteSounds pretty fishy to me!
See: Snail Darter.
Delete