alt Hacker NewsWhy aren't the data centers footing the bill? If they want to suddenly spawn GW of load out of thin air then they can pay for the needed infrastructure without pushing that burden to other customers. Power companies have demand metering which offsets the cost of ensuring there is capacity available for commercial and industrial customer loads. Something similar should be levied against large single point of use customers like this.
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>Why aren't the data centers footing the bill?
> Something similar should be levied against large single point of use customers like this.
Already exists and has for decades.
All the "rules" (literal laws in some cases) for how the cost is borne for grid upgrade costs are a complex web.
There's half a dozen different ways you "apply" to connect a large load or generation to the grid. They all come with different rules that make or break things. And all this has multi-year timelines.
Source: Trying to get someone else to develop solar on my property
Similar to why do wealthy owners of sports teams make the public pay for their new stadiums or threaten to move the team?
> Why aren't the data centers footing the bill?
Because they can make the rest of us pay for it and historically there's been little pushback against that. That's changing, but that's why they shove it off on the rest of us.
Socialize costs, privatize gains. If they didn't try to make someone else pay for it, some activist shareholder might attempt to make them try it. Then all of the other players in the space copy the same playbook and now it's practically mandated that if you want to compete in the data center development market, you must make someone else pay for the electricity, lest the returns on such an investment lag behind those who do.
Why should they? If demand for X goes up, and price goes up, the whole point of the price system is to incentivize all users of X to use less and producers of X to make more.
Here's an example where the benefit is obvious:
Say I set up a desalination plant for a city with water shortages. I use a lot of electricity; this drives up electricity prices. But I also sell the more scarce water, lowering the price of water. If I make more selling the water, then to first order I'm helping people overall- they value the water more than the electricity. Perhaps I put other, less efficient desalination plants out of use, or simply other uses of electricity that people value less than the water I provide.