Why 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.
The map in this article just shows density of data centers in each state. They do cite this [newsweek article](https://www.newsweek.com/map-shows-electricity-costs-in-ever...) which does include a table that shows residential electricity cost changes by state.
- "The state-level numbers make that abstract claim concrete"
- "That’s not a market failure. That’s a policy choice."
And the map doesn't seem to link with the information in the article, and states like Hawaii don't link up at all with the points made. Very little data to back it up too, and instead it's linking to its own site. One weird example is when Microsoft is mentioned in regard to covering its own costs, but the link goes to an article about a protest at a Microsoft data center and has nothing to do with the pledge.
A brief skim of a few other articles on the site have similar issues. Is there a way to ignore or down-vote an entire domain?
The article mentions this, but this is an opportunity not a problem.
If a hyperscaler wants to connect a 500MW datacenter, great. That's a huge investment, with various positive externalities. Requiring the builders of the datacenter to also pay for whatever transmission, substations and generation upgrades their demand requires is just not that big of a deal compared to the total size of the investment, which is part of why companies like Microsoft and Anthropic have committed to doing just this.
The article notes that some states are already moving to require this, and more should do the same.
There's a huge opportunity here; the AI buildout is probably the biggest wave of private industrial investment in decades, if not ever, and it comes at a time that we need to accelerate the buildout of our electrical grid. Let's have the hyperscalers pay for it in a way that makes this positive sum for everyone.
As an aside, it's kind of funny that this article reads like it was written by Claude.
Trash AI article with a useless map. It looks to be a screenshot from an interactive version in the linked Newsweek article[^1] that was mangled by the slop grinder.
The source map shows current electricity costs rather than projected ones. This makes more sense given NY just implemented a moratorium on new data centers (because who uses the Internet in New York anyway /s) but it was dark blue on there.
During the dot com days rich tech yuppies were accused of "driving up rents".
But I'm pretty sure rich tech bros didn't bid up rents. They simply could absorb the high rents set by profiteering landlords.
The real culprit was "systematic underproduction" of housing: special interests and politicians colluding to prevent a free market in housing.
It seems the "data center" is the new tech bro being accused of "driving up prices". But what about environmentalists who gutted nuclear and coal production? What about poorly conceived solar or geothermal production. Why do we not have more competition in energy?
I'm pretty sure data centers didn't guide energy policies and if they did they'd want cheap electricity too.
The tech bro and data center bad guy are red herrings to distract from bad public policy.
As someone who pays attention to Texas energy rates, I'm gonna call BS on atleast the TX portion of this as rates are at multi year lows. Here are the current rates (1 year contracts):
- Oncor (DFW) 11.6 kwh
- Centerpoint (Houston) 10.8 kwh
- AEP Texas Central 11.2 kwh
- AEP Texas North 11.8 kwh
- Texas-New Mexico Power 12.5 kwh
- Lubbick Power and Light 12.5 kwh
Not sure how this aligns with new datacenter builds but you can buy power cheap currently.
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[ 0.23 ms ] story [ 3.1 ms ] thread- "The state-level numbers make that abstract claim concrete"
- "That’s not a market failure. That’s a policy choice."
And the map doesn't seem to link with the information in the article, and states like Hawaii don't link up at all with the points made. Very little data to back it up too, and instead it's linking to its own site. One weird example is when Microsoft is mentioned in regard to covering its own costs, but the link goes to an article about a protest at a Microsoft data center and has nothing to do with the pledge.
A brief skim of a few other articles on the site have similar issues. Is there a way to ignore or down-vote an entire domain?
If a hyperscaler wants to connect a 500MW datacenter, great. That's a huge investment, with various positive externalities. Requiring the builders of the datacenter to also pay for whatever transmission, substations and generation upgrades their demand requires is just not that big of a deal compared to the total size of the investment, which is part of why companies like Microsoft and Anthropic have committed to doing just this.
The article notes that some states are already moving to require this, and more should do the same.
There's a huge opportunity here; the AI buildout is probably the biggest wave of private industrial investment in decades, if not ever, and it comes at a time that we need to accelerate the buildout of our electrical grid. Let's have the hyperscalers pay for it in a way that makes this positive sum for everyone.
As an aside, it's kind of funny that this article reads like it was written by Claude.
The source map shows current electricity costs rather than projected ones. This makes more sense given NY just implemented a moratorium on new data centers (because who uses the Internet in New York anyway /s) but it was dark blue on there.
[1]: https://www.newsweek.com/map-shows-electricity-costs-in-ever...
But I'm pretty sure rich tech bros didn't bid up rents. They simply could absorb the high rents set by profiteering landlords.
The real culprit was "systematic underproduction" of housing: special interests and politicians colluding to prevent a free market in housing.
It seems the "data center" is the new tech bro being accused of "driving up prices". But what about environmentalists who gutted nuclear and coal production? What about poorly conceived solar or geothermal production. Why do we not have more competition in energy?
I'm pretty sure data centers didn't guide energy policies and if they did they'd want cheap electricity too.
The tech bro and data center bad guy are red herrings to distract from bad public policy.
- Oncor (DFW) 11.6 kwh - Centerpoint (Houston) 10.8 kwh - AEP Texas Central 11.2 kwh - AEP Texas North 11.8 kwh - Texas-New Mexico Power 12.5 kwh - Lubbick Power and Light 12.5 kwh
Not sure how this aligns with new datacenter builds but you can buy power cheap currently.