To Make Way For Data Centers, Google Will Pay Others to Use Less Power (nytimes.com) 102
Google is funding one of the nation's largest "virtual power plants," paying homes and businesses indirectly to reduce electricity consumption during periods of peak demand so more grid capacity can be available for data centers. Under its expanded deal with Voltus, the program could provide up to 1,070 megawatts in the Mid-Atlantic PJM grid -- roughly the output of a large nuclear reactor. The New York Times reports: That electricity won't come from new power plants. Instead, Voltus will sign up homes and businesses and give them financial incentives to curb their usage when local power demand is high or the grid is strained. Many of these reductions could occur automatically, such as through smart thermostats that dial back air-conditioning during peak summer hours or batteries that can provide temporary on-site power.
Each of these tweaks frees up only a small amount of power on its own. But by aggregating them across thousands of businesses and homes, Voltus says it can reliably provide lots of extra capacity when it's most needed, and do so within a few years. While tech companies will likely ultimately need to build traditional power plants if they want to keep building large data centers, this approach could be a faster, cheaper and less-polluting option in the interim. "We really see virtual power plants as a critical short-term solution," said Ellen Zuckerman, head of energy market development for North and South America at Google. "It's a way to invest in our communities, really double down on our clean energy ambition, but also meet capacity at speed and scale."
Each of these tweaks frees up only a small amount of power on its own. But by aggregating them across thousands of businesses and homes, Voltus says it can reliably provide lots of extra capacity when it's most needed, and do so within a few years. While tech companies will likely ultimately need to build traditional power plants if they want to keep building large data centers, this approach could be a faster, cheaper and less-polluting option in the interim. "We really see virtual power plants as a critical short-term solution," said Ellen Zuckerman, head of energy market development for North and South America at Google. "It's a way to invest in our communities, really double down on our clean energy ambition, but also meet capacity at speed and scale."
Fuck I hate how stupid they think we are (Score:2, Insightful)
And we're going to let them do it because we are dumb as a bag of hammers.
Hey just out of curiosity what did you trade for reliable access to electricity? Answer in the comments!
For me I wasn't asked. County level election officials made sure that it was difficult enough to vote that my voice was diluted to the point of irrelevance.
But if your voice still matters let us know! For example if you're freaking
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what did you trade for reliable access to electricity?
The ability to stargaze and an increased probability of burning down my house. How dare they take house burning away from me! It makes me so bad it makes me want to set something one fire... like a house! Wait... OK, so just stargazing.
Re:Fuck I hate how stupid they think we are (Score:4, Insightful)
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Crazy idea, I know... how about we don't build the data centers everywhere? Maybe Google can build its data center on they campus,,, and the rest of us can deal with the 15ms latency. Maybe Google and them can pay more than we pay for power.
(Oh, and fark is crap)
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Maybe Google can build its data center on [their] campus...
Ya, like they'd really want one of those things in their neighborhood. /s
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ECL MV1 / Lambda is 3,5 miles from the Googleplex. And 10-12 miles further to the southeast, Santa Clara is one of the densest datacentre hubs on Earth.
If you care about where they actually live, and distances to datacentres:
Sundar Pichai: Los Altos Hills, CA: ECL MV1 / Lambda (Mountain View), 5-6mi; Santa Clara Data Center Hub (CoreSite SV9, Vantage, Colovore), 9-11 miles
Larry Page: Palo Alto, Ca: ECL MV1 / Lambda (Mountain View), 4-5mi; Santa Clara Data Center Hub, 10-12mi.
Sergey Brin: Los Altos Hi
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"County level election officials made sure that it was difficult enough to vote that my voice was diluted to the point of irrelevance."
Is this AI slop? Because a human should know better, making voting difficult for others would give your vote more, not less power.
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So they are just going to raise our power bills until we are forced to take this "deal" And we're going to let them do it because we are dumb as a bag of hammers. Hey just out of curiosity what did you trade for reliable access to electricity? Answer in the comments! For me I wasn't asked. County level election officials made sure that it was difficult enough to vote that my voice was diluted to the point of irrelevance. But if your voice still matters let us know! For example if you're freaking out about trans girls you matter. If you oppose common and well tested vaccines your voice matters! If you think somebody who smokes a joint should do 5 years in the pokey your voice matters! Let us know in the comments below!
My local area is trying some end-runs around the issue right now. Power company is sending us notices of all sorts of "services" meant to "reduce your ongoing bill during peak times." What it amounts to is giving them control over when you're allowed to run AC during the summer and heat during the winter, and control over your food storage refrigerators and freezers, so that they can de-prioritize our power usage and funnel it to the datacenters we repeatedly screamed at the city and county admins that we d
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what did you trade
my heroes for ghosts,
hot ashes for trees,
hot air for a cool breeze,
cold comfort for change
and walk-on part in the war
for a lead role in a cage.
Maybe they should fund generating capacity instead (Score:5, Insightful)
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I do wonder if they'll manage to get the public to freak out about the furries the same way they did about trans girls and about violent video games and such.
And if they can't get us panicking about furries what's the next thing they're going to try and spook us with?
Re:Maybe they should fund generating capacity inst (Score:5, Interesting)
We're already having to reduce power during periods of peak demand, Google should be funding more non-carbon producing generating capacity if they want more power.
I was thinking of something like: why not pay for solar panels on people's houses (or in their yards). That will lessen what those in the house need, and perhaps even more than needed will be generated to go to the grid (and them). It would also be a 1 time cost to write off not some ongoing payment. (Although I wouldn't be surprised to find out they somehow weasel their way out of paying for electricity they make people give up for them.)
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There are already companies that will install solar panels on your house for free. It's called "solar leasing".
Or you can take the money Google pays you to lower your electricity use and buy the solar panels yourself. You might also buy an EV with V2G to provide backup power.
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TANSTAAFL... There's something I have not seen in a while on here ! Of course there is a free lunch for those at the top, those powerful enough to take a free lunch.
But for us proles yes indeed. These "free" solar panels are often very bad deals often including in them taking part equity of your home, even taking ownership of it in some cases; some homes have been rendered unsellable because of these solar panel contracts.
Be very very careful with any solar panel contract, do not skim over the contract, r
Solar is not enough (Score:2)
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I charge the EV overnight, plus top of the battery on cheap overnight rates. Result is barely any daytime usage for me. How that translates to a 24 hour
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Solar works at least for spring and summer. My friend disconnects from grid for spring/summer and uses only his solar and battery backup. He connects to grid for autumn/winter.
You are lucky to live in a location where electricity is still cheap during nights. In my location, the electricity is cheap only during lunch time and very early afternoon. It is very expensive during evening and stays quite expensive until morning.
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What's been noticeable recently is that these periods are now tending to be different. I've been driving EVs for eight years and on roughly the same tariff (the 6 hour cap is new), and usually the "cheap EV charging" and "overnight low rates" coincided. Now however, I've noticed that if I plug in the E
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It takes a good portion of the day to charge the batteries, which means your solar panels aren't powering the house, not to mention a lot of people don't own a house.
Cloudy days, nighttime, stormy days, tornados, hurricanes, typhoons... fairly sure they're all not best friends with solar, and the last four aren't friends with wind turbines (and, they don't like non-windy days).
Been saying it for a while... pour money into fusion research and better designs for nuclear plants.
Not to mention, https://en.wikip [wikipedia.org]
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It's interesting to watc
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If your solar is charging you batteries, what's powering the house... either the panels are charging or powering.
You need more batteries in your bank so you can run your house overnight completely.
But, you still run into the same problem... enough solar panels to charge the batteries (assuming you have a big enough battery bank) (for overnight) _and_ power the house all day... and, as for snow and ice... that's gonna be all over your panels (I'm in MN, so I know about ice taking down power lines).
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London latitude is about 52 deg. My friend's latitude is about 48 deg. It is about the same. If cloud cover averages are about the same as well then your power generation will lacking a lot in winter. His experience is that it is about 10x lower around winter solstice compared to summer solstice.
Notice that winters at his location are typically cloudy and summers are typically with clear skies. That does not sound appealing but it is good. Cloudy winter days mean early morning temperatures typically around
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I agree with you about nuclear. I think it is a better option overall. At least it works as well in winter as it does in summer. Nuclear is even better in winter. It works fine even in summer if money are spent on cooling towers instead of heating up nearby rivers. Not sure about fusion. It looks like a pipe dream. But I believe that fission can work well if more research and investment is put into it. And some more standardized regulations across countries. Something which would streamline government appro
Re: Solar is not enough (Score:2)
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Someone should invent some sort of energy storage device. We could call it a "battery". It would revolutionize the energy sector.
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See: https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
And, batteries tend not to like huge sudden draws (your fridge or AC draws about twice it's nameplate rating at startup... not sure if that applies to an electric stove or microwave) for long timescales... although, that might depend on the chemistry.
Not to mention, the solar panels are outputting DC which goes into the battery pack, and has to be lossily inverted to AC to use for anything.
A battery system big enough to run your entire city (for conversation, let's say
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And, batteries tend not to like huge sudden draws
What in the ever loving fuck are you talking about? Batteries are so hugely ideal for it they are now becoming the primary tool for grid scale stability. Fuck your little fridge, batteries can take the sudden draw of a coal fired power station disconnecting from the grid, and do so better than inertial stability systems ever could.
Like seriously, I can't let this go. Your comment has to be the single most incorrect thing anyone has said about batteries ever. We simply have no electro-mechanical system that
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https://www.ufinebattery.com/b... [ufinebattery.com]
Batteries can handle welding — but only under controlled conditions. Spot welding is the safest and most effective method for joining battery cells, while welding with a car battery for field repairs is possible but risky and not recommended for regular use.
If you have a better way, all of us on here would love to here it.
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And how many people do actually live at the equator +/- 15 degrees latitude for which solar is ideal?
Dumbass.
What do you think why China is not caring at all about US tariffs?
Asia buys Chinas solar stuff like little kids by hot waffles around Christmas.
You know what the problem on this planet is? STUPID PEOPLE like you.
Google Gemini:
"estimate please how many people live around the equator +/- 15 degrees latitude. Count whole countries, not important to be exact by latitude."
Answer: "
An estimated 1.6 to 2 bi
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Adjusting to add partial countries like south India, we get here:
"""
When adjusting the calculation to transition from whole-country data to exact regional sub-divisions, the total population living within the ±15 latitude equatorial band increases significantly to approximately 2 to 2.3 billion people.
"""
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Could they not offer people these new plug in solar kits? Paying for panels to be mounted on roofs 90% of that cost will be admin and installation. If they funded say a million households with an 800W plug in solar kit, that's a theoretical 800MW, could be 100MW in practice?
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Maybe down south. In the north peak electrical demand is in the winter when there is a notable lack of sunlight. Often the same inversions that bring the heavy overcast also brings dead calm so no wind either.
As an example I used the heat pump in cooling mode for part of 12 days lest summer. Heating mode has been going since the beginning of October and will stay that way until late April.
I suppose the AI people could ship me firewood so I could use the wood stove more. Or use kerosene heaters to save preci
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No, that's not the issue. The issue for DCs is that they need a lot of firm, dispatchable power in one particular place, which means that they need a big connection to the local grid, and the local grid needs lots of power flowing to it. It's a distribution problem, primarily.
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You have failed to understand what I mean by this being a distribution problem. See by response to the other poster below. It has nothing to do with the source, the distribution problem for new DCs would exist whether the grid used coal, nuclear, renewables or magic fairy dust. If you create a net new large local power draw, you create a distribution problem. It can be solved with on-site generation or by enhancing local distribution infrastructure (or a mix)
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1. That’s not what distribution means in this context. What distribution means in this context, is that DCs have a large power draw in a specific location, and the grid is not set up to handle that. So the options are to bolster local distribution or build on-site generation / storage at the DC.
2. Large areas of the world have low insolation, but those areas have higher levels of wind, and anyway, 80% of humanity lives in high insolation areas of the earth
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The problem is not overall capacity. It's that they're all crowding into the same areas. Most places in the US (let alone the world) have nobody building datacentres anywhere near them. They all want to go into the places with not merely cheap power, but cheap property taxes and other incentives. Some places will tax everything, down to the servers themselves, whereas some will only tax the land and the building shell, not even the power interconnects or cooling systems.
When everyone wants to rush into
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They should tax them all the way down to the servers (maybe down to how many processors)... the land that these useless things occupy could be used for possibly housing, building a factory (y'know... jobs), growing crops (if the land is right)... tax the Hell out of the AI outfits and give that money to the people.
Do we really need these things? Are they making life more livable for everyone?
If the area they build one in doesn't have enough power, that outfit can pay for their needed increase in power, and
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The proper response to being in an area where datacentres are crowding in is "lobby your elected officials to increase property taxes and not give out tax increment financing deals". Tax everything, and tax it well. They'll stop building new datacentres in your area, and the ones that are there will (unless they were given a long-term sweetheart deal beyond your already-low tax rates) start being cash cows for your area.
Of Course it is Automatic (Score:5, Insightful)
Whenever Big Brother needs more juice, he turns off your air conditioning and uses what used to be yours. Of course they will pay for this. You will get a small discount on your power bill and you will lose control over your usage because the controller they install will be in charge. And the rates will rise to make up for the discount they promise. They must think we all are really stupid.
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Whenever Big Brother needs more juice, he turns off your air conditioning and uses what used to be yours. Of course they will pay for this.
This already exists and works well. Except as usual the abolitionists blow it out of proportion. I have a remote signal in my AC unit that can be activated by my power company. All it does is change and lock in place the temperature setting by a couple of degrees. That's the reality. You may notice it's slightly warmer or cooler than normal and before you question it you see dollars rolling in, because at present this is fucking lucrative.
Literally everyone I know has the same plan and they all agree you'd
Ummmm... it gets cold (Score:2)
That all sounds great when the outside temperature is "temperate". But it gets very cold outside, and all those "saved" watthours will get sucked up by their subscribers' homes. Then what, shut down the datacenter until things get warm again?
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"Common rabble" live better today then they have at any time in history. Education and truth, give it a go sometime.
Great, sounds wonderful! You first.
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Well datacenters also generate a lot of heat, so they should just start building the datacenters in peoples' houses! Problem solved!
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Well datacenters also generate a lot of heat, so they should just start building the datacenters in peoples' houses! Problem solved!
ROFL.
But in most places in the US, the peak power usage is air conditioning. Solve one problem, make another worse.
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If they stopped guzzling all the RAM supply, we could be running smaller models locally offline on our 64GB smartphones;pushing emissions back onto the consumer.
( Fertility rates might go down with all that heat/radiation in your trouser pocket! )
2 billion parallel computing devices distributed over 5G/WIFI.
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"all those "saved" watthours will get sucked up by their subscribers' homes. Then what, shut down the datacenter until things get warm again?"
Why assume the saved watt-hours just disappear? If local residential demand absorbs them, Google can still buy power from elsewhere. The interesting economic question is why Google finds it cheaper to pay consumers to curtail usage than to acquire additional supply through the grid. That suggests congestion, transmission limits, [price gouging, psychological noise,] o
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How about... (Score:2)
They pay people to 'Not use their products'
They could also pay couples to not have children, that will save a lot of energy in the long run.
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"A Modest Proposal" - Jonathan Swift
Power companies have been doing this for decades (Score:2)
Back in the 20th century some power companies would put your hot water heater on a "controllable" meter that could be turned off during periods of high demand. The rate on that meter was lower than the rate for the rest of the house.
Industrial customers who are willing to be "turned off" can also get cheaper rates from many utility companies.
I have this now (Score:2)
PG&E in California incentivizes me to reduce my power consumption from 2 to 7 pm, and gives me cheap off-peak electricity from 2 to 4 am, when I charge my EV.
I've been on this program for 11 years. It works well for me.
What's next? (Score:2)
Rationing? Just f... off and stop stealing consumer electricity, you wankers.
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Live and let live (Score:2)
How about no. (Score:2)
Fuck google (Score:2)
If you catch an AI Data Center Town hall (Score:2)
I can't find any links right now, but if you listen to a Google representatives in a town hall, they tend to talk with a special kind of arrogance. When they talk about google, they talk about it like it is a utility similar to water or electricity. Like google search is a thing that people can't live without. It is fucking bonkers.
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Like google search is a thing that people can't live without. It is fucking bonkers.
I used to feel that way before they enshittified it.
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Try to take away Google from an average user. They will get very vocal about how every other search engine is crap.
15 million merits (Score:2)
Responsibility Deflection (Score:2)
Voltus will sign up homes and businesses and give them financial incentives to curb their usage when local power demand is high
For businesses, tweaking temperature and increasing HVAC recirculation (i.e cutting down on fresh air) reduces power consumption.
So when the AC air in these building is unusually cold, warm or stale: ...should we think of Voltus and Google?
- at the doctor's,
- at the mall,
- at the cinema,
- at (God forbid!) the hospital!
What is Ellen Zuckerman, head of energy market development for North and South America at Google, doing to mitigate the impact on vulnerable on humans? Does she have constraints applied in her
Just fund Solar (Score:2)
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The OP means fund residential solar for other people to free up grid capacity.
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That was a very unintentionally accurate typo. Yes, this would indeed be a sane end result. But no, it’s not the same end result, because solar is well suited to going on people’s rooftops but is not well suited to providing a large amount of firm dispatchable power for a DC.
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Solar without storage means no electricity after about 6 PM. Depending on the location one needs solar generating about 10x the required power in summer to have just enough power in winter. That 10x is for latitude around 45 deg without storage capacity for half a year. Good luck with solar only!
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Neither the OP nor anyone else is suggesting solar only, and stopping building other things. The OP is just suggesting that Google fund lots of net new resi solar additions to the existing system at the same time as existing build outs of other new generation continue. Adding storage would be very sensible, and in a sane world where the Trump admin got out of the way, adding lots of offshore wind would make great sense for this particular grid, given it’s next to the Atlantic ocean. But funding net ne
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I do not really need any studies. I have an approximate number directly from the source
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"I don't need any studies, I know a guy" is such a quintessential answer from someone taking your position.
Also chef's kiss is that you are now comparing production at winter *solstice* with summer *solstice* whereas you previously claimed the 10x multiple for the entire six "summer" months vs the entire six "winter" months.
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Solar without storage means no electricity after about 6 PM
Nope.
It means electricity from the grid after 6PM.
Stupid moron.
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Right, faeries and pixies are feeding carbon free electricity to the grid during nights!
Or are you arguing for nuclear? If so I'm not against it.
I guess you can do something with wind turbines and geothermal too. Well, wind is even less reliable than solar. Solar at least shines every day though very poorly in the cloudy winters. But geothermal could work.
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Which part of "electricity from the grid, when it is dark". do you not get?
Where does your electricity come from right now?
Wow, does that magically go away when you put solar on your roof?
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A CPU, GPU or the fan in a rack: does not care if the power comes from Solar or Nukes or what ever.
Google will walk away (Score:5, Insightful)
There’s a reason why critical infrastructure is run by boring, careful companies called “utilities” that are guaranteed a modest profit by the state but have legal obligations to follow extra rules that amount to not screwing their customers over, and providing service to anyone within a set geographical area. They hardly ever make the news. They never lose much money, but they don’t make much profit either. Their finances are enforced by law. If the state squeezes them too much, they go bust and the water/electricity/sewer services stop. If the companies demand too much profit, well, too bad, the state gives them access to critical infrastructure and that gives them a veto. The stable equilibrium is a boring stable company. Utilities are one of the few areas where socialism has truly been proven to be superior to capitalism.
Trust me, we do *not* want silicon valley tech-bro venture capitalist types like google poking their fingers into utilities. Its a bad idea. It will end badly.
Stop using AI? (Score:2)
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Fuck you (Score:2)
Ellen Zuckerman.
These clowns are clueless. (Score:1)
If Alphabet thinks that people in Maryland, Virginia, and DC are going to leave off their air conditioning in August for a paltry payment to keep data centers running then they're fucking insane. Not using much power when it's 105 degrees and humid outside is not something most people will do so Gemini can summarize other people's email.
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Paying homes and businesses "indirectly" (Score:4, Interesting)
Translation: The money is given to the politicians.
Juxtaposition (Score:2)
I like how this article was right below one on AI agents accessing bank accounts. For decades I was told to conserve power and water just so companies can use it to run data centers and lay off workers, undermine financial systems, generate scams...
Re: Juxtaposition (Score:2)
Conserve life, people more import than you need to live it
A person takes very little power (Score:2)