Electric grids under pressure from energy-hungry data centers changing strategy

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5 thoughts on “Electric grids under pressure from energy-hungry data centers changing strategy

  1. I’m not sure of the economic attraction to these investments — they don’t appear to employ a lot of people, they use a lot of power and water, and they are being offered tax abatements.

    1. I suspect in some ways, it’s like the tax incentives race to attract corporate headquarters that was so hot 20 years ago, but without any of the benefits. I think in this case so many data centers are going in, the odds of success are fairly high, but now it’s like the dog that caught the car. Now what.

      We shouldn’t be haunting a conversation about one industry disrupting our power grids, but with Indiana’s regulatory environment, the IURC will just grant the utilities almost anything they want to the detriment of the rest of the state.

  2. Cutting off power to data centers is a non-starter for them. If that’s part of the deal, they’ll never agree. Not that I think it’s a good thing to plant these energy- and water-gobbling biz anywhere.

  3. Cutting off the power may well be the stupidest suggestion regarding the construction of these centers I’ve heard to date. If my computer network or any computer network depends on these structures, and the power is off, then all that computing demand needs to go to another data center. Which will overload the computing grid and slow it down or stop it.

    An Indy Star opinion writer suggested we should all get over the fact these are coming, and embrace the idea. If that is the new theory in factory siting, then we’re all in trouble. As to what other projects will that theory be applied? Nuclear Power Plants? Waste water plants? Recycling Centers?

    Maybe if we agreed to development standards for more rural areas, and design features that put the buildings 10 floors underground, or however many floors so that only one floor was visible at surface level, so they wouldn’t be so starkly ugly, and would be protected from tornadoes and other high wind events…maybe industrial parks of power centers, so we could have them concentrated and develop the infrastructure to serve multiple centers instead of one at a time…pipe in the water from the Great Lakes or Mississippi or Ohio Rivers?

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