By Robert W. Chase
The most worrying about the nationwide increase in electricity prices is that the average consumer takes the invoice for the largest power users – huge data centers for artificial intelligence.
Electricity prices could increase by 15 to 40% in the next 5 years after a recent forecast. And the prices have already started to jump. Electrical prices for retail have risen faster than the inflation rate – 13%since 2022.
Do not make a mistake, high electricity prices are now the most urgent energy problem of America and affect everyone, from normal citizens to huge companies.
Ohio is part of the PJM connection connection, a regional raster operator of 13 states, the largest in the nation. The lack of electricity – and even higher electricity prices – can affect PJM and the neighboring Miso network in the middle west earlier than other regions of the country. Both networks stare quickly approaching capacity errors.
Our electrical electricity consumption for AI calculation centers, electrification and industrialization grow quickly and the supply is struggling to keep up. Some supply companies in the Midwest have come across demand levels that they have not projected for a decade. And in real time we learn the developing mix of resources on the Internet as poorly equipped for times of topics.
During a recent heat wave, the Miso network, which sometimes receives 25 GW wind power – gets enough for 15 million houses – only 1 GW wind generation if the demand for electricity was the highest. Brutal heat and no wind left ten billion dollars of wind investments in Hulking statues. It was the coal and natural gas fleets that came to rescue again.
Our power supply has almost no border for errors. And the situation becomes more difficult. While rising electricity prices are a signal to bring new production capacities onto the market, demand grows faster than our ability to meet it.
New power plants and energy infrastructure -like pipelines and transmission lines -make up years of planning and development before they can be connected to the network. New data centers, on the other hand, with the electricity needs of entire cities or the state, will pass from the signing committee to operating board within a few months.
172 data centers, the fourth largest total number of the nation already live in Ohio. However, the next generation of data centers developed to meet the needs of the AI dwarf to these existing facilities. Consider the Tech -Riese -Meta from Data Centers, including in Ohio. Only one of these data centers – probably starting next year – will have the electricity requirements of the entire state of Nevada.
While the political decision -makers deal with the challenge of the AI boom and try to regulate the effects of these data centers on the electricity markets, the responsibility for technology companies must be to increase.
Tech giants give orders for their own natural gas systems and even close to bringing nuclear power plants of the next generation into the network. These are helpful, but solutions for tomorrow, while the effects on consumers are already biting today.
What technology companies have not done so far is the existing carbon fleet. It is a blatant mistake.
Despite increasing electricity requirements, many existing coal -fired power plants should be closed early – a reaction to years of state and federal supervisory pressure. The loss of these plants is simply incompatible at this moment.
Tech giants have the resources to ensure that these facilities are not only not deported from the network, but can also be used much more efficiently to satisfy the increasing demand.
Combating high electricity prices will require creative solutions. And the companies that drive the increase must be the way.
Consumers earn reliable and affordable electricity, and the knowledge that the companies that boost the electricity price do everything to face with it.
Dr. Robert W. Chase holds BS, MS and Ph.D. Developments in petroleum and natural gas technology from Penn State and is a registered professional engineer in Ohio. He is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), the Ohio Society of Professional Engineers (Osppe) and the Southeast Ohio Oil and Gas Association (Sooga). From 1978 to 2015 he was a professor and chairman of the Ministry of Petroleum Technology and Geology at Marietta College.
This article was originally published by Realclearergy and provided via Realclearwire.
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