Previous columns have evaluated fast-moving trends and technologies around the energy transition, reaching a conclusion in the last column that the incredible push to rapidly build many hundreds of new AI datacenters, each consuming 100–1000 MW, will likely be highly disruptive to normal electric utility operations. The situation is further exacerbated by the demand for newly electrifying industry sectors, all wanting to capitalize on the lower cost of new distributed energy resources (DERs).
The grid is poorly positioned to serve these new loads. Even as the grid needs more generation and transmission infrastructure, 2600 GW of these new DERs are waiting in the queue to interconnect with the U.S. transmission grid, with inordinate delays arising from a lack of models and automated (AI-based?) tools to analyze the impact on the grid. Datacenters are all building sufficient local generation (∼100 GW+) to meet their full operating demand continuously, while many commercial and residential premises are installing solar panels and batteries to meet partial load and to reduce their energy bill. This can result in significant infrastructure overbuild.
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