How Big Data Centers Are Slowing the Shift to "Clean Energy"

quote:

---

LOUDOUN COUNTY, Va.—The cutting edge of technology is driving the power grid back to the 19th century.

An explosion of so-called hyperscale data centers in places such as Northern Virginia has upended plans by electric utilities to cut the use of fossil fuels. In some areas, that means burning coal for longer than planned.

These giant data centers will provide computing power needed for artificial intelligence. They are setting off a four-way battle among electric utilities trying to keep the lights on, tech companies that like to tout their climate credentials, consumers angry at rising electricity prices and regulators overseeing investments in the grid and trying to turn it green.

Ground zero for the fight is Northern Virginia’s “Data Center Alley.” About 70% of global internet traffic passes through the area’s data centers. A spider web of power lines connecting data centers to the grid crisscross neighborhoods and parks. More are coming.

Amazon Web Services, Amazon.com’s cloud-computing business, invested $52 billion in Virginia from 2011 to 2021 and plans to invest a further $35 billion by 2040. Loudoun County, Va., has nearly 37 million square feet of data-center space and 42 million square feet more has been proposed.

---

quote:

---

Many new data centers coming to Northern Virginia are known as hyperscale, or facilities that are far larger than previous generations of data centers. The big ones use as much power as the city of Seattle.

For many utilities, the solution to rising demand is to keep coal-fired power plants burning for longer and add natural-gas power plants to balance big expansions of renewables.

Dominion Energy, which supplies electricity to most of the data centers in Virginia, expects their power use to quadruple over the next 15 years, representing 40% of the utility’s demand in the state.

Utilities in Georgia and North Carolina are adding fossil-fuel power or considering delaying the shutdown of coal-fired plants to meet the demands of data centers and other industries. Duke Energy told regulators it needs three new gas-fired power plants in the Carolinas. Otherwise it says it will have to keep coal plants open.

---

quote:

---

Big tech companies such as Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon are among the biggest users of data centers. They have also committed to net-zero emissions worldwide in the coming decades.

Some are pushing back against the use of fossil fuels. Microsoft criticized Georgia Power’s proposed gas expansion, saying the plans undervalue renewable energy’s ability to meet demand. Tech companies have warned that utilities could lose customers if they burn more fossil fuels. Georgia Power said its portfolio protects reliability, supports economic development and includes renewables and battery storage.

“No data center wants to be tied to the need for new fossil resources, that’s the problem,” said Brian Janous, former vice president of energy at Microsoft. “You can’t throw this much [data-center] capacity at the system and not have some degree of fossil resources to support it.” Earlier this year, Janous helped launch Cloverleaf Infrastructure, which is helping large electricity consumers find power.

---

quote:

---

Wind and solar can’t serve data-center demand around the clock, so growth will need to be supplemented by natural-gas-fired power generation, said Arshad Mansoor, chief executive of the nonprofit Electric Power Research Institute.

“You can be an idealist,” Mansoor said. “But if you’re a realist, you’ll add a ton of solar and you can balance that with gas.” The only other option to new gas plants is delaying coal and nuclear-plant retirements, he said.

---