Texas Grid Flags Risks As Data Centers, Crypto Sites Fail Voltage Tests (reuters.com) 21
Reuters reports:
Several large data centers and crypto facilities planning to connect to the Texas power grid ahead of peak summer demand have failed key reliability tests, raising the risk of power outages just as electricity use hits its seasonal high, according to the state grid operator... Unlike traditional industrial customers, which tend to draw electricity steadily and predictably, data centers are engineered to cut their connection to the grid at the first sign of trouble to protect their equipment and keep services running. That makes them an unpredictable and potentially destabilizing force on grids already under pressure from rising demand. Four groups of unnamed large electricity users, including data centers, abruptly disconnected from the Texas grid during a test of how they would handle routine voltage disturbances, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) said in a report dated May 21.
When large customers abruptly cut their power use, it can knock the grid off balance and trigger wider outages. ERCOT, which manages electricity for most of Texas, said it reviewed about 20 gigawatts of large customers seeking to connect to the system, including eight projects totaling roughly 3.9 gigawatts aiming to start up before July 1. It said it identified four groups of large power users that could each trigger more than 5,000 megawatts of demand tripping under certain fault conditions, based on simulations of transmission system disturbances. Those abrupt drops in demand were equivalent to the electricity consumption of a large city such as Boston.
When large customers abruptly cut their power use, it can knock the grid off balance and trigger wider outages. ERCOT, which manages electricity for most of Texas, said it reviewed about 20 gigawatts of large customers seeking to connect to the system, including eight projects totaling roughly 3.9 gigawatts aiming to start up before July 1. It said it identified four groups of large power users that could each trigger more than 5,000 megawatts of demand tripping under certain fault conditions, based on simulations of transmission system disturbances. Those abrupt drops in demand were equivalent to the electricity consumption of a large city such as Boston.
Flywheel storage buffer (Score:2)
Perhaps exceptionally large power users that can quickly drop their demand should be required to have a flywheel energy storage unit on-site to smooth their cut off and start up demand.
When they see the need to shut off their servers, they transition their power requirements to spinning up a flywheel storage system, then gradually reduce their power requirements. When they are ready to start up their servers again, they can tap into the flywheel's energy and slowly transition back to grid power.
Using a fly
Re: Flywheel storage buffer (Score:2)
Even a water tower where you run pumps to store grid power and turbines to reclaim it. And it is relatively cheap to install if max efficiency is not a requirement.
Re: (Score:2)
Saw such a device in the basement of a data center that I visited 35 years ago when I was in college.
Wait, what? (Score:3, Informative)
data centers are engineered to cut their connection to the grid at the first sign of trouble to protect their equipment and keep services running.
You are building a billion-dollar data center and you aren't putting routine-but-poor-power-quality-tolerant power-conditioning uninterruptible power supplies between the grid and your sensitive equipment???
Besides, if you are going to build a deci-megawatt-or-bigger power consuming complex, it would help the grid out if you put some grid-scale-batteries and a large amount of always-on local power generation on-site, as some data center complexes and other heavy-industry-consumers are already doing.
deca-megawatt-or-bigger, not deci (Score:1)
Sorry. I need decaounces of caffeinated liquid.
Re: (Score:2)
>You are building a billion-dollar data center and you aren't putting routine-but-poor-power-quality-tolerant power-conditioning uninterruptible power supplies between the grid and your sensitive equipment???
How will the UPS help the grid if the data centers suddenly cut their connection, e.g. stop drawing power? The local backup or power generation is likely already in place - the issue is the spike they'll produce on the grid when the data center switches to that alternative local source abruptly...
some DC's have power the local generation controll (Score:2)
some DC's have power the local generation controlled by the power co as part of an joint deal.
Re: (Score:2)
How will the UPS help the grid if the data centers suddenly cut their connection, e.g. stop drawing power?
The issue is that the disconnections happen when grid power quality drops below acceptable levels.
A poor-power-quality-tolerant UPS doesn't have to be disconnected from the grid when the power quality dips.
Therefore such sudden cutoffs would be much rarer.
Re: Wait, what? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You are building a billion-dollar data center and you aren't putting routine-but-poor-power-quality-tolerant power-conditioning uninterruptible power supplies between the grid and your sensitive equipment???
You misunderstood the problem. They *ARE* doing this. At the first sign of a voltage disturbance they switch from the grid to their UPS / own generators and keep running because they do care about themselves. This is the problem. During a period of grid instability having a massive load disconnect makes the instability worse. It's literally one of the ways cascade failures on the grid can occur.
You misunderstand. That's what a UPS does! (Score:2)
When a UPS sees that utility power is out of spec, it disconnects from the grid. Now, do that at gigawatt scale.
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps we are misreading their ultimate intent with cutting themselves off. Of course UPS is a standard to maintain system operations and continued power. The disconnect feature, isn’t for that.
It’s more a switch abused to buy power companies.
After they force a billion or seventy in infrastructure upgrades just to handle the massive demand for AI, perhaps they will try and sismiss themselves as a paying customer, claiming many disconnects every week are “justified.” And mains pow
It almost looks intentional (Score:4, Insightful)
If I was deliberately trying to cause a nation-wide backlash against data centers, I'm not sure what I'd be doing differently from what the AI companies are currently doing.
Has nobody told them that people don't like having their lives disrupted, particularly when they don't see any compensating benefit, or even a convincing reason for having any of it? If they were to ease off the gas pedal just a bit, they could probably do a boil-the-frog and get a larger number of smaller/less-obtrusive data centers built over a longer time period, and without the voter revolts and strict legislation that are likely to hobble them now.
Re: It almost looks intentional (Score:2)
I recently bought a pair of wooden shoes from a store in Holland Michigan. I wonder if this is a sign
I can hear it now (Score:1)
TX: We have more data-centers than CommieFornia, neener neener! You're a bunch of `ZZZzzt *poof*
many smaller less-obtrusive may be better for all (Score:1)
The biggest complains from huge data centers are noise, traffic, water use, and power use/impact on the grid, without the economic benefits that a large-energy-using factory would typically bring.
Depending on location, a bunch of smaller complexes spread over hundreds of square miles vs. one big one might have tolerable noise and traffic levels, particularly if they are in non-residential areas. If you can get the data center down to under, a few thousand square feet, you can literally disguise it as a hou [click2houston.com]
Re: many smaller less-obtrusive may be better for (Score:2)
California scaling (Score:2)
Re: California scaling (Score:2)
Or 3.2 DeLorean trips.