Why residential power bills are spiking faster than those of nearby data centers

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7 Comments

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  1. Most of Europe has electrical distribution underground.

    Now utilities are saying poles and overhead wires are really expensive to maintain. Maybe we should bite the bullet and start putting that stuff underground. More extreme weather is making a case for upping the reliability.

    1. Burying utilities underground is relatively cheap with new build neighborhoods. Retrofitting electric distribution to existing neighborhoods would be prohibitively expensive. Would you cut down all of the trees to bury the lines in the existing right of ways and dig up every yard to bury the lines to the houses. Maybe digging up the streets with the existing water, sewer and gas lines is an alternative that would also cost a fortune to do and to repave the streets. Finally, look at how the wires get into the houses. They would have to be buried and the indoor portion of the service would have to be rerouted. Hugely expensive. It sounds good until you look closer.

  2. Individuals do not have the pull and power that the owners of the data centers do. Ironically it is the data centers that are causing the increased demand and not the individuals who are the ones ultimately paying for all of the costly add ons.

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