I see white roofs that can be dark themed to reduce the load on the grid.
Wasn’t there a country with too much solar, causing electricity prices to fall too low?
Do they not have any space left for data-centres?That’s probably true but you only get ⅓ of a day on average of power. Demands are still rising so the other ⅔ of the day prices are higher and likely still averages higher on average for an entire day even if ⅓ of it is so cheap.
My electric utility just arbitrarily added 170 (~50% of the total) bucks to my bill this month, despite me using 11% less electricity.
The whole point of being a utility is to allow the “efficiency” of a monopoly without the ability to gouge the customers. Frankly, I’m looking to see if there is a lawsuit against the utility at this point so I can join on to it.
Also looking into residential solar. Ideally I can just give my electric utility the finger and disconnect my service. Between them and gas, I’m paying about 400 bucks a month, which could get me a nice loan for a solar array, battery backup, and all electric appliances.
And, funny enough, you would be doing them, the world, the datacenters, and yourself some good.
Yeah the problem is going to be getting the loan, and I would need about 1900sqft for the solar array, which would take up most of my yard. I’d need to elevate it up near the roofline of the house, so the entire back yard would be one big partially shaded patio. Which sounds nice, but I don’t think the city will let me build it.
Tiered pricing would help.
It does
The more you use, the cheaper it is
I thought that was just a China thing and others learnt from them, not to make that mistake.
And all we get in return are chat systems that make up bullshit facts. I mean, I don’t disagree that they can actually do some useful stuff, too. But the proportion of the public that benefits from them in any meaningful way is tiny compared to the cost to the rest of us. I hope a tornado lands on Elon’s gas-powered monstrosity in, where, Tennessee, I think? Destroy that shit, please.
Unlike this place, I bet most people out there actually enjoy Google’s AI summaries. I mean, it’s almost the Wikipedia article verbatim, but if you just need to know what a thing is, they actually save people time
Our culture disintegrates every time we choose convenience over everything.
Wao, I watched this video yester, precisely about how detrimental all this bullshit is to us right now. How disconnected from reality and self-reliance it is making us.
Here’s the link to the video if anyone is interested (yes, I know, it’s YouTube, but I saw it in newpipe, Sue me) :
Our… web search culture?
And in return, they drive traffic away from the sites that collect the information in the first place, causing the sources to lose revenue.
In the case of Wikipedia, it saves them money
The evidence so far is that the AI summaries have driven away traffic from Google.
They have driven traffic away from the websites, not from Google itself
Considering Google has the worst AI in the entire industry I wouldn’t be surprised if this was true. This is Google’s Siri moment.
It is not like I did not have access to that information before. I don’t need to be trapped in some closed browser environment labeled as “search”
You had to look at all the results yourself before getting to the thing you wanted. Similarly, before search engines existed you could just find the information by directly accessing the website
This is going to feel like the recycle scam isn’t it. Corpos sucking down every last drop of energy while residential will be asked to turn up the thermostat in the summer and down in the winter so we “do our part”.
literally passing the bucks to us: https://apnews.com/article/electricity-prices-data-centers-artificial-intelligence-fbf213a915fb574a4f3e5baaa7041c3a
Always has been
Residents in big cities have been experiencing it for decades at this point.
ConEd saying “We’re preparing for the heat wave in your area this week. Please, limit your energy usage to prevent power outages.”
Yeah, and times square is still lit up full brightness. The skyscraper offices aren’t doing their part. Most of them, you can feel the cold on the street from their lobbies.
crypto scam, AI is the new crypto
Charge higher rates for crypto and AI. No one should be hot or cold so some asshole can make more money.
That’s how prices work, yes.
This has been the case for decades, why would it change now?
It will be even worse than before. Texas hasn’t added any power generating capacity outside of the devil that is solar and wind. Solar and wind are the only reasons we haven’t seen the rolling blackouts for a few years now. Texas is even trying to make it harder to add more solar and wind, so it will strain even more.
I always ignore power savings requests. If they really can’t serve the population, they need to make more power. If we all turn down our usage to make it work, they won’t make more.
Rolling blackouts, my dude. Dig it.
I can dig it
Don’t let the tech bros into your state.
I live in NJ, USA. I thought I had missed a payment when my last electric bill came. Nope, just a huge rate hike. about the same amount of electricity as the prior year, double the bill.
Were you recently told your bill is gonna go up again when they put in that massive data center in a year or so? We were told. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ no option to say “fuck you, make them pay their bills.” Nope. PSE&g was like “brace for it bitch.” And that was it.
PSE&G told some coworkers of mine their bill would go up by “as much as 20%” shortly before they went up by 150%. One of them got a bill for $800 for their two bedroom apartment
I probably was. But I also just delete all their emails. They’re the only energy distributer in my area. Even if I contracted with someone else I’d have to pay their increased distribution rates.
Yeah same here. Just bullshit that they’re like “this is happening. Pay us more”
These taxes collected from tariffs have to go somewhere
Europeans: “first time?”
My electricity costs must have tripled since the Ukraine war, not like they were low before…
Where are you located? In Germany it spiked but now I’m paying less than before the war (25 vs 27 cents).
Italy.
how can they get away with this? Are data centers not paying their bills?
The way utility rates are set allows them to spread costs onto residential ratepayers instead of bearing it directly.
What? That doesn’t make any sense.
It’s essentially supply and demand. If the data center is willing to pay more, then everyone has to pay more. I hate it.
Places like data centers don’t pay the same rate that individuals do though. They get an industrial rate.
Basically they cut them a break so they can fuck you. The supply is more More than enough and the only demand that increased was from corporate interests.
That is regional. In Europe commercial/industrial prices are usually higher, especially in times of crisis, because residential power has a price cap. Damn socialists and their regulations!!1!
Yes it is! And this article is written about States being in the United States and how its affecting that infrastructure.
Trust me, I know shit is better everywhere else. My comments are about the current state of USA electricity and how its being affected by the content in this article. Which takes place in the USA.
I’m sure in the land where they actually care about people its different.
Socialism for the rich. Capitalism for everybody else.
It’s more that they get a bulk discount, whereas
Jamaica mindividuals don’t, and apparently they can set the bulk discount below the generation cost.It’s incredibly dumb and why I’d like there to be more choice. Instead of one company handling supply and service for industry and residents, there should be multiple companies handling supply and an independent org handling service. Basically, the suppliers would bring the electricity to the cities, and cities would handle it from there. Then they need to compete for the lowest cost energy, customers can pick which suppliers they’d like, and prices per KWh would be static regardless of customer (the only discount for large customers would be service).
This isn’t a choice issue. It should be state owned and operated in a non-profit capacity, and everyone should pay their fair share.
I don’t know about you, but I haven’t had a great experience with government run services. Government is better at owning and setting rules about things than actually operating them. If it’s possible to have competition, then the government playing referee seems to provide a better result.
If a monopoly is unavoidable, then yeah, the government should be that monopoly. But as long as it’s feasible to have at least three competitors, it should be privately run.
Quite a few states actually have systems like this. In which individuals can choose their power generator at will. It is nice as it increases competition and lets you tailor energy use to your wants.
If you want 100% green, switch to a generator that does that. If your default utility gets too expensive, switch to a cheaper one, etc.
The closest we have is buying green energy in blocks, which means you reserve that much generation capacity. In theory, they have to build more capacity if demand outstrips suooly, but if they produce more than is reserved, they just sell at the normal (lower) rate. If you use less than you reserve, you just pay more.
It’s a wonky system and I’d prefer to choose by provider instead. At least our electricity provider has to ask the state legislature for permission to raise prices, so that’s nice. Energy here isn’t all that expensive (around the nationwide median) and moving toward green energy, but I think I’d prefer a more competitive system.
you can leave the Jamaica M individuals the fuck out of this please.
Lol, struck it out.
It makes sense if you’re a greedy piece of shit that values corporate investment more than the people you serve.
I’m glad you see that it doesn’t make sense though it means you are a good person.
Bigger clients negotiate bulk discounts, basically. But the other factor at play here is supply and demand. The higher the demand, the higher the price for the supply. Household demand has remained more or less the same, but because data center demand has shot up, prices have too.
See, the data is right there to raise the rates on the data centers causing the rise in demand and not the households.
As prices go up it becomes more attractive to build more generating capacity. When capacity goes up prices will come back down.
Mind you, the Trump administration has made it much harder to install the cheapest electric generation available — solar and wind.
“When capacity goes up prices will come back down”
Loooooool. I know that’s how its supposed to work but you’re mistaken if you think that they will ever decrease the price. That almost never ever happens.
My electric company (which is the only one in my area) even started fucking mining bitcoin and they hit us with a surge pricing model charging us even more for the electricity we use not only during daytime but also during summer. I’m sure they say some bullshit about capacity loads or whatever.
They sure got enough capacity to mine the fuck out of that bitcoin though.
Greedy fucks, all of them.
My prices went down in the last two years by almost half. I could get a time based tariff and sometimes buy electricity at negative prices. Of course I have like 400 different electricity providers I can choose from… Monopolies are… not great.
Ok so 400 different providers lets me know you’re not in the USA then.
That’s where this article is written about
Yeah, monopolies are no-no in Europe.
It depends and varies wildly based on your area and how the electricity is actually sold.
If they are using an energy stock exchange, as many places are, then increased capacity, especially increased renewable capacity, greatly reduces the price per kWh because the price depends on the most expensive method of generation.
And because renewables always offer their electricity for free to the exchange, as they don’t have any fuel etc costs, you sometimes end up in the peculiar situation like here in Finland (and in the entire NordPool area) tomorrow between 13:00 and 16:00, where electricity is literally priced at 0€/MWh, as there is enough renewables to cover it all.Free electricity is cool unless you produce solar. Everyone who does will be paying to produce electricity because the grid fees go both ways (produce or consume) lol
Luckily I do not produce solar. Wanted to install, but lately I’ve been thinking… With how NordPool works, the more common solar becomes, the less attractive it’ll be because there’ll be more and more periods where you have to PAY to produce electricity. Or disconnect your panels from the grid every time that happens? AKA whenever solar is the most effective…
I’m not familiar with NordPool specifics but this is exactly right and is playing out in California and elsewhere too. Basically just the duck curve. Storage is all but required as solar covers 100% of midday load.
From what little I’ve researched about privately producing back to the grid here in Finland, it really didn’t make much sense. You get terrible rates and as you said have to pay the transfer fees too. It’s priced in a way that they clearly would rather you didn’t do it at all.
But the NordPool isn’t really a system designed with tiny private producers in mind. Price goes to zero, or sometimes even negative, exactly to try to prevent having to pull electricity production down as that’s expensive and complicated. It’s clear to see that it isn’t a sustainable model in the long run, but hopefully it incentivises companies to build the solution - storage - to make use of all that “wasted” energy and stabilize the price and market.
Ideally anyway. Government interference can always screw it up and create barriers to competition.
Where I live (Ontario, Canada) on-peak electricity prices have pretty much exactly kept pace with inflation over the past 20 years, so in effect electricity costs have not gone up.
Off-peak prices have crept up more than that but solar power doesn’t help with off-peak generation at all. Wind turbines do produce more at night but we’ve had government subsidies to encourage building wind power capacity and those subsidies result in higher wholesale prices for that power (actually above the off-peak prices consumers pay).
even under the assumption that they do pay the exact same prices as normal citizens (they don’t). electricity prices will go up the more usage there is, as they mostly rely on limited factors.
Yupp just like every single other aspect of our living here our lives have been made worse to protect the interests of large corporations.
Land of the free, and all that.
Are data centers not paying their bills?
They are. The state has failed to ensure there is adequate supply to keep prices flat.
Look up your local “Public Service Commission”
Then note that everyone on it is a republiQan.
It is like Obamacare. You have a person who smokes, gets drunk, eats a lot of sugar, don’t exercise, you pay for their bill through hiked premiums, and overutilization. Hopefully, that sinks in.
In the countries where healthcare has existed (and worked) for decades, there are additional taxes to alcohol, sugar, tobacco, petrol to cover for this.
And also yeah, and I have no problem whatsoever knowing that a small part of my salary goes towards saving the life of people who wouldn’t be able to afford private healthcare. That’s called empathy - and I wish that’d sink in as well.
I’d rather my part of the public money go to help an alcoholic neighbor than to subsidize a certain Coastal Elite’s habit of buying golf courses and ballrooms.
isn’t that the reverse argument? Typically only <20% of people take the healthcare system for granted whilst everyone else pays their dues. Here, it’s everyone pays their electricity bills but 1 absolute behemoth of a customer hordes the resources, and instead of being cut off or denied service as would be typical in other services, they pay hand over fist to get first dibs on all resources, whilst passing off the cost to everyone else
Spewing more inflammatory bullshit again, huh.
Like health insurance isn’t already like that lol, lmao even.
it’s my life choices that rise my electricity prices, i should have built a giant data centre to consume the equivalent of a whole town do the taxpayer’s would subsidise my bills.
Why isn’t the roof of that facility covered with solar panels? It might not provide all the juice they need, but it will offset some. Future facilities like this should be forced to install some sort of energy mitigation strategy before getting approval.
Of course it should be covered in solar panels but so should most roofs everywhere but this single roof would be less than a drop in the bucket.
A square meter solar panel gives you about 100 watts while the sun is at it’s highest point, and only when aimed directly at the sun. Typically over the entire day, the average will be a fraction of that
Meanwhile these servers use multiple CPUs that each take around 200 watts. A single server can take between 1-5 kilowatt in power. A single rack than carry dozens of those server’s, so you see that you’d need way, waaaayyy more solar panels to make up for all of that
Again, not saying they shouldn’t. All buildings should have solar panel roofs, but for this one building it won’t do much to the point that the difference would be a blip
A square meter of solar gives you over 200 watts for many hours of the day in realistic conditions in Europe/Canada, more in the US or tropical countries.
When’s the last time you looked into this?
I just went fully off grid and I have a relatively large house and workshop.
The panels I used, which are great but aren’t the absolute best on the market come out to about 231W per sq. meter.
I have a 39kW system installed just for my house. It’s overkill, yeah but I plan for the future (telling the regional power monopoly to go fuck themselves for the next 30 years).
Covering one of these centers with solar would absolutely make a huge impact. Not only by providing power during the day but also with keeping the building cooler.
For reference, the panels I have (65 of), coupled with 100kWh battery bank.
https://www.runergy.com/wp-content/uploads/download/DH156N8-30F.pdf
Even at over double the other guys estimate on power per area, it isn’t even touching the requirements of major data centres. What it takes to run a normal house is tiny, they likely have servers that individually draw more power than my entire household, and they have hundreds if not thousands of these servers.
Do it anyway because solar is the closest thing to free power we have, but it isn’t gonna cover the building.
Well of course. Which is why I mentioned it making a significant impact. Full offset wouldn’t be feasible without it being as large of a scope a the data center construction itself; not even considering storage requirements.
The unfortunate likelihood of projections (currently taking shape) being well understood, and accepted, at the time is extremely high.
It’s a win-win if you’re the owner of the server farm who had closed door discussions with the power company beforehand. I mean the citizens don’t win, but when has this ever been a concern?
If it was in their best interests financially, it would be included in the financial model before construction. My guess is that it was more appealing to just cut deals with various players.
I get it, but you make them all do it anyway, just on principle, if nothing else.
Best we can do is diesel generators 😔
You’re right about the general idea, but I think you’re even underestimating the scale here.
I don’t think these servers will be doing much on CPU, they’ll be on GPUs. HPE will sell you a 48 rack unit behemoth with 36 Blackwell GB200s for a total of 72 GPUs and 36 CPUs. The CPUs are actually negligible here, but each of the 36 units use a total of 2700 watts (single GPU itself is supposedly 1200 watts so that would make the CPU 300 watts?)
36 * 2.7 = 97.2 kilowatts. You put just a hundred of these in a data center and you’re talking over 10 megawatts once cooling and everything is factored in. So this is what, 100k m^2 of solar panels for 100 racks?
You’d want them to be running most of the time too, idle hardware is just a depreciating asset. Say they run 75% of the time. 0.75 * 10 * 24 * 365 = 65700 MWh which I will not even convert to gigawatt hours to simplify this: The average American household uses about ~11 MWh of electrical energy per year. A single AI-focused data center without even all that many racks uses as much power as ~6000 households. They’re building them all over the country, and in reality I think they’re actually way bigger than what I mentioned. It’s putting a significant dent in the power grid, to the point AI companies should be required to commission nuclear power plants before being allowed to build their data centers.
I think that sooner or later GPT 6 and higher models will become too expensive for most people, and they will moderate their ardor and start introducing restrictions on use without all this circus like, look, we have a perpetual motion machine…
But even weak models are enough to spy on you damn well.
All the models are already too expensive for most people. Most people don’t pay to use them, billionaire investors do. When the AI bubble bursts our retirement funds will collapse and billionaires will simply move money somewhere else.
Well, yes, something similar has already happened, it seems that even some rich people, because of one such bubble, passed away when they lost everything.
I’ve been thinking this for some time. It just seems completely implausible that companies like OpenAI will continue letting the people of the world use their product for free, what with the ruthless material requirements involved in it’s distribution and upkeep.
To me it seems clear that the right to intellectual property and the right to work or contribute meaningfully to a workplace (as if that were actually a right) are currently being blitzscaled. I.e. these guys are running their companies at a loss to allow their product to become a necessity. Once that’s achieved you will no longer have the option not to use it and they will be able to charge whatever they like.
We really need to begin pressuring states and governance to protect us from the predatory business models of these venture capitalists.
Well we don’t have much time, we either need to act now or we could end up in something like 1984 and Mad Max. Although I’m not entirely sure, I’m afraid that we will really end up in complete shit due to crop failure, hunger and, of course, death and poverty, so we may well live like in those works. There seems to be a theory that the world is not run by governments but by corporations and governments are like puppets for the rich.
They will just let people use some micro model that’s basically as good as the current mini one and call it a day
They increased their energy use to produce a provably inferior model. What the hell are they doing?
Raking in vc money?
“States feel pressure to act”
First of all, did they interview all the States? Secondly did the states say they “felt” “pressure” “to act”? And lastly, Bull.Shit.
