Full title: After severe 76% electricity price hikes due to AI data centers, Virginia requires firms to pay for all dedicated upstream electrical infrastructure — State regulators crack down, governor says move will save civilians ‘hundreds of millions of dollars’
Behold, the accurately predicted consequences of their actions!
Fun idea: make the shareholders pay
Is there money to made in the markets just by knowing this was inevitable?
“My groceries cost way more now, my gas has doubled, my electricity bill is through the roof, but gosh darn it if Trump goes for a third term in 2028 I’ll vote for him. Best president ever!”
Sooooooooo, we as a nation have ALREADY just given up that trump can and will run for a 3rd term? I always said he’ll try to force a loophole. So far he’s done nothing of the sort. No loophole has been established. There is from a legal standpoint no reason to think he can currently run for a 3rd term.
Yet all across the internet I keep seeing people talk about it like it’s inevitable. Like we’re just going to skip the two term limit, and just pretend he found the loophole, because otherwise he’ll drag us through some bullshit to get there. So now, rather than challange him at all, we as a society have already given up, 2 years before the election even happens. We’ve come to accept that laws and constitution mean nothing. Trump is just going to run for a 3rd term. That’s just how it is. Laws don’t matter. Government doesn’t matter.
And who exactly decided all this? I for one plan on repeatedly challenging his ability to run for a 3rd term.
Still 46% of the vote. Just because Virginia doesn’t split their electoral votes, like some states, that doesn’t let those people off the hook for being part of the problem.
Do you ever get tired of finding the worst in every situation?
Virginia isn’t even the biggest problem, you don’t have to smile and dance, but just don’t be angry about it for a bit.
Like customer calling why my insurance double? Have you seen the economy? Fucking clueless.
and HHS and OZ is trying to make MEDICAID unusuable for people by forcing a 80hr work requirements, which already puts one over the income limit for those programs, automatically.
pay for all the required transmission infrastructure that the project will use exclusively.
Emphasis mine. If the AI buildout can claim that the line will serve as a secondary entry point for a neighbourhood they’re not going to pay.
At least in Northern Virginia where most of the existing data centers are and where most of the announced build out is planned, populations are steady or falling - not a lot of new residential buildouts for them to tie new power capacity to, and current neighborhoods already have existing power capacity built out for them. Anything the data centers ask for is pretty much 100% for their use and not anyone else’s.
It’s still a loophole.
Yuuup. At the data centers I’ve been to in VA, there are smaller buildings peppered in which house small businesses. Bet your ass all it takes is a little gyro shop to qualify as sharing the infrastructure.
Oh man! I can get a gyro now??? Sweet deal!!!
deadpans left
deadpans right
…I was being sarcastic!
It would have been better had it ended at “Governor says move.” without the ellipses.
I dont understand you america, on many things. We do lots of things wrong here, but our power bill is based on usage. If you only use this much, this is your rate and the more you use the higher your rate goes. I sometimes make it to stage 4 power use and thats expensive but it doesnt effect me if I don’t go into that stage.
Higher users pay more without affecting smaller users in other words.
We do lots of things wrong here, but our power bill is based on usage. If you only use this much, this is your rate and the more you use the higher your rate goes.
At the residential level that can exist too in the USA, but its not nearly that simple here in the USA, and I doubt its entirely that simple in your country either. Electricity isn’t like a tank of fuel that is drawn down and refilled. Besides maintaining the infrastructure for generation and delivery, electrical capacity at any given moment has to be built into the system, not just pure total consumption over time. So simply paying for electricity consumed doesn’t capture all of those costs in the system to make that electricity consumption possible to the consumer.
Commercial/Industrial customers in the USA don’t just pay for “amount consumed” but also “demand charges” which means “at any given point how much electricity will you be pulling from the grid?”. Its not uncommon that the demand charges for businesses can be larger than the charges for amount of electricity consumed. Additionally, some European governments give large breaks in electricity rates to incentivize certain industries. Germany for example gives 50% discounts on electricity for chemical production, glass producers, or semiconductor producers if those companies invest in decarbonization efforts.
Many European commercial/industrial electricity consumers have variations on what I described above in addition to wholesale electricity purchases for a given period which also breaks away from your described “pay for what you use with higher rates for more consumption”.
Can I ask you what country you’re in (or another country that you know uses your country’s same system)?
Utilities should, of course, be priced at the cost to generate, maintain, and distribute the resource. But this is America, home of rampant capitalism. Thus, profit is king. That means utility prices depend on supply and demand.
Data centers use so much power that it creates a resource scarcity. So the utility company raises the price per unit that electricity is sold for in those markets.
Everyone’s bill goes up when data centers are allowed in and shareholder profits skyrocket. Since the shareholders are happy, the powers that be are usually unwilling to address the problem as it is only the peons suffering.
It’s actuality a little surprising that the government is trying to address the problem in this case.
Because we’re owned by corporations. The datacenter company says “give us a tax break and discount on utilities and we will build a datacenter in your town, which will create x hundred jobs”.
So they do. And a few dozen tradespeople will be contracted to build it, then when it’s done they’ll leave again. A few people stay behind to run the thing, but mostly, datacenters are hands-off lights-out operations.
Somewhere in there, the politicians get a kickback. Probably their cousin owns one of the contracted companies.
Just to expand on this, most people and corporations don’t just pay for usage, they also pay a fee for the max amperage they have connected to the grid. I’m sure it’s actually the same in the USA, it’s just that they’re bending over backwards to bend the rules for data centers due to mass psychosis and rampant corruption.
Time to close the barn door now that all the animals have escaped
while the barn is on fire.
Bit late for what was essentially a foreseeable problem.
