alt Hacker NewsGrid forming batteries and inverters are a thing. They can control the frequency on the grid. Just a matter of getting the right equipment.
The nice thing with data centers is that they are somewhat flexible. It's not a constant load. Data center operators can choose to reduce load. And if properly engineered, they could do so automatically based on signals from the grid.
The issue with outdated grids is that it relies on technology (spinning mass) that's at this point a century old. Which makes it brittle against outages like you describe. The solution is not more spinning mass but batteries and renewables to take the place of that spinning mass. A battery can respond to oscillations in milliseconds. If you then add flexible load that can spin up/down based on the amount of available power, you gain a lot of stability.
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Yes we know the solution is infrastructure. The question is who gets to pay for it.
In America that seems to be the dying small town whose only economic value is cheap land.
> The issue with outdated grids is that it relies on technology (spinning mass) that's at this point a century old. Which makes it brittle against outages like you describe. The solution is not more spinning mass but batteries and renewables to take the place of that spinning mass. A battery can respond to oscillations in milliseconds. If you then add flexible load that can spin up/down based on the amount of available power, you gain a lot of stability.
Why the spinning mass technology being "century old" (more like "millennia old" but anyways) is a problem somehow? The Newton's First Law didn't change much in the time that has passed.
Anyone who tried to "respond to oscillations in milliseconds" knows how hard that problem is because the force you apply is integrated twice before it takes effect. Try stabilizing a swing by pushing it's forward when it's behind the equilibrium point and pushing it backward when it's ahead of it. Now imagine a grid of swings connected by rubber bands and a distributed system of independent actors responding to oscillations. There are much more ways in which this system can diverge rather then converge.
Time may prove me wrong, but the arguments like "spinning mass is old therefore should be replaced" certainly won't.
Replying to a description of a problem in a highly complex system with a solution that begins with the word "just" does nothing for your credibility.