From the Washington Post:
Excerpts:
- AI and the boom in clean-tech manufacturing are pushing America’s power grid to the brink. Utilities can’t keep up.
- In Georgia, demand for industrial power is surging to record highs, with the projection of new electricity use for the next decade now 17 times what it was only recently.
- The state’s major power company, Georgia Power, stunned regulators when it revealed recently how wildly off its projections were, pointing to data centers as the main culprit.
- The soaring demand nationwide is touching off a scramble to try to squeeze more juice out of an aging power grid while pushing commercial customers to go to extraordinary lengths to lock down energy sources, such as building their own power plants.
- The situation is sparking battles across the nation over who will pay for new power supplies, with regulators worrying that residential ratepayers could be stuck with the bill for costly upgrades.
- It also threatens to stifle the transition to cleaner energy, as utility executives lobby to delay the retirement of fossil fuel plants and bring more online.
FULL STORY