Precisely this. Incredibly annoying headline

strictnein 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It doesn't even match what's in the article.

> "concluded that expected power demand from data centers was _a_ primary reason for $23 billion in customer price increases "

Also, it's weird that he describes PJM as "the organization that monitors the PJM market" when they describe themselves as "a regional transmission organization (RTO) that coordinates the movement of wholesale electricity" [0]. So are they monitors of the market or are they the market themselves?

I don't know... maybe I'm being picky, but the article just seems off. The whole bit about how data centers could maybe game the system by using less power during peak times also doesn't make sense - that's when they also have the highest demand. Pointing to cryptominers just makes me think he doesn't get what they do, which is basically arbitrage. Of course they stop when power costs go up, it eats up all of their profits and they can simply start back up when the costs go down.

[0] https://www.pjm.com/about-pjm

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TurdF3rguson 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Right, you can't point to a year where price increases didn't happen, so "a primary reason" becomes meaningless. It was going to happen for other reasons if it didn't happen for this one.

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butvacuum 3 hours ago | parent [-]

by my research, everything has scaled almost linearly with population. But- there was a huge, undeniable, dip in cost of a kw/h of power when lighting started focusing on CFLs and LEDs. Grid expansion stalled, and now people are upset since it started growing again

	▲	phil21 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Doesn’t the rollout of more efficient lighting also coincide with the shale gas boom? This also happened at right around the time coal plants were starting to be retired for good as well, which short-circuited some expected generation cost increases. You also had the de-industrialization of the US happening at the same time, which also took pressure off the transmission grid. We basically had a few things offset population growth to allow us to use our grandparents electric grid investments for far beyond their expected lifetime. We’ve finally just caught up after a free ride over the past 4-5 decades. I overall agree with you strongly, just surprised that more efficient lighting would have that much impact on grid demand.

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butvacuum 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I find it hilarious nobody ever mentions texas w/r/t this issue. They already required new Large Load Interconect Studies- and paying the cost of new grid infra. And, the hufe influx of study reqiests lead to new laws introducing batching.

I will note- the actual generation is left to market economics. I have much more faith in that working out equitably than regulating the grid. Even so, they've had significant consumer level grod connection fee increases- which I think reflects the end of various easy houshold effeciency gains (eg: incandecent -> CFL -> LED, P4 -> 14th gen, and HVAC. mainly lighting) and privatized profits more than anything.