alt Hacker NewsA crisis doesn't magically create generating capacity.
Say a system had X capacity and 100% utilization. Now someone wants to build a data center that consumes 0.1X power. Demand is now 1.1X and to prevent the system from going over capacity 0.1X of pre-existing demand has to be destroyed.
Subsidizing other users makes the problem worse because they will increase their energy usage in response to the lower prices.
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I'm a huge fan of a household allotment to a reasonable amount followed by market rates for everyone. We can start with water and electricity.
Every household gets X gallons of water a month at a regulated rate. After that, everyone competes equally.
No, but energy is sold at market prices, and money is fungible and money can be moved.
Money does, in fact, create generating capacity, as expensive, idling energy sources are turned up.
Giving everyone a discount bill on the first X KWH, and making them pay market rate for the next Y KWH and making them pay a market + penalty rate for everything above that solves the problem of consumer inflation.
So you require the data center to pay for increasing generating capacity by 1.1X as part of its permitting.