Would demanding that large spikey users of energy like data centers implement some sort of demand ramping/isolation from the grid in the form of a massive capacitor bank or flywheel generator between them and the grid help reduce the risk here?

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manarth 3 hours ago | parent [-]

The data centres aren't inherently spikey, in general use their consumption is reasonably predictable.

However, if a DC detects that the _grid_ is wobbly (voltage or frequency deviations) the DC will disconnect without warning, and switch to its batteries and generators.

The grid complains because it's suddenly lost hundreds of MW of load. For the DC to have isolation capability, it would need a load-sink which can consume roughly the same power as the DC in normal operation, and can take in that load at a moment's notice.

It's a hard problem to solve, and probably better managed at grid-level than DC-level.

	▲	TOMDM 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		My intuition is that there would be a fairly stable base load, but doing something like switching on a new training run of a frontier model would be incredibly spiky, thousands of GPUs going from somewhat idle to 100% in seconds.
	▲	cucumber3732842 4 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		>it would need a load-sink which can consume roughly the same power as the DC in normal operation, and can take in that load at a moment's notice. Apply the power to two ends of a holding pond and boil it. Best part is it fails safe. Good luck getting that permitted though.