alt Hacker NewsResidential electricity rates don't get "bid up" like that. Increases typically must be approved by the government and have to be justified by expenses rather than market prices. Ashburn VA, which has more data centers than anywhere else, actually pays below US average rates.
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This might be true in the US (which is obviously what the article is about) but it isn’t everywhere. Data centre impact is a concern here in New Zealand and we have a poor track record of handling the impact of large users of electricity. Case in point - the aluminium smelter that has manipulated the entire country power prices (and various other things) via threats.
Which market do you mean when talking about "market prices"?
I'm pretty sure the utility where I am has been able to get rate increases approved partly based on rising prices they have to pay to buy power on the wholesale market when they do not have enough capacity of their own to cover all their customers.
Growing up near Ashburn makes every anti data center argument feel like crazy land. From my perspective when I lived there, they were somewhat ugly large boxes that paid county tax and raised land value. I never noticed any kind of noise from them, though they were largely on industrially zoned land right by the airport. Also gave us single digit ping. Electricity rates are below the national average.
Now that I'm an adult I have several friends employed in the industry, mostly in cooling system automation.