I am curious how electricity is priced. Why are more and more utility providers charge based on ‘infrastructure cost’ or ‘fixed platform fee’ instead of usage fee?
twunde 2 minutes ago [-]
Within the US, energy prices for are typically split into supply and distribution rates with taxes and fees added to each of these. There are typically a large number of these fees that are passed through to the consumer, but just are bundled together to reduce confusion. An example fee is one for keeping power plants idle as extra capacity for when it's needed. Electricity has a nationwide market with different prices for spot prices vs long term although if you are big enough you can also get a direct contract to hedge your energy supply prices.
The complaint here is that PJM is spending money on upgrading the long range wires and passing that fee in a way that's not calculated for usage but instead it's likely divided evenly amongst member states. If you're upgrading wires in PA why should Maryland pay for that? These would taking in new/higher fees being passed to consumers.
The long range transmission lines are different than short term transmission lines. The long range ones appear someone to hit electricity from a power plant in California for a business in Baltimore.
TrackerFF 20 minutes ago [-]
I'm not familiar with the Maryland power grid, but I've observed in other places that putting data centers in places with older / inadequate grids can / will require upgrades to handle the new load.
Avshalom 1 hours ago [-]
because as part of their legal monopolies they are only allowed to charge a "reasonable" usage fee.
ETA: utility companies make profit on capex, not opex
rayiner 53 minutes ago [-]
That's mostly incorrect. In Maryland, like in most places in the country, the distribution infrastructure is controlled by regulated monopolies that buy power on the market from generators. Your bills separate out the fees for usage and the fees for distribution, and the Maryland PSC has to approve both.
claw-el 1 hours ago [-]
Only allowed to charge “reasonable” usage fee means no other non-usage fee allowed or it is purposely designed to allow other kinds of fees?
Kind of stuff that can radicalize a young family struggling to make ends meet...
timmg 10 minutes ago [-]
It's not clear from the article whether this is just datacenters -- or if that is just the convenient boogeyman.
The grid operator for the northeast, according to my Governor, has been well-behind in building out infrastructure. Of course new datacenters cause more load. But so do new houses (we're building as many as we can) and electric cars, etc.
SOLAR_FIELDS 11 minutes ago [-]
I'll be the first to complain about Texas being on its own energy grid and the dumpster fire of resultant things that happen because of it, but it is worthwhile to call out that this sort of thing is not possible in Texas because of that.
luxuryballs 1 hours ago [-]
who is actually signing off on these agreements to build it, knowing the bill goes to the locals? seems openly shady
reactordev 1 hours ago [-]
Those closest to the beltway…
bilbo0s 24 minutes ago [-]
Apparently not. Maryland residents didn’t sign any of these agreements in other states. Nor did their elected representatives. They were just presented with the bill to support the infrastructure in the other states because, you know, they’re so cool. And it doesn’t get any closer to the beltway than Maryland.
What’s crazy is the utility company admits that the infrastructure is for the growth in the other states. They admit Maryland won’t grow as fast. They concede Maryland needs less infrastructure. But still saddled Maryland residents with the extra bills for out of state data centers?
I mean, at least say it’s for Maryland. Just to make it look good? I don’t know? Make some kind of attempt to make it palatable.
I’m wondering if it’s just easier to pass the cost on to people in Maryland than it is in other states? Like is the regulatory environment with respect to this kind of thing more lax or something?
There has to be some kind of explanation. Because on the face of it, this just doesn’t look good. It makes ai and tech industry just seem like robber barons. And tech guys don’t need that right now.
jfengel 11 minutes ago [-]
It's for "the grid", of which Maryland is a part, so it supposedly derives some benefit.
And since the grid is being updated to accommodate new paying customers, Maryland will benefit from lower future prices. Right? Right?
jmyeet 41 minutes ago [-]
We've been here before [1]. In that case, extra load on the grid meant the municipality needed to purchase more power (at higher prices), which raised everybody's prices.
Electricity supply is highly regulated. Prices for electricity are constrained and often set by state regulators. These are so-called "usage fees". But beyond that the utility is allowed to charge customers for infrastructure and transmissio and those fees are out of control. We recently had a court case where a North Carolina utility illegally overcharged customers but the judge didn't assign damages because legally the utility could just charge customers for those damages [2]. And the legislature passed laws to protect the utility as well.
This is going to get worse too because private equity is rapidly moving into this market and they know that capex can be entirely pushed onto customers with no recourse.
So the data centers tend to get sweetheart deals on electricity too. So while the total cost of electricity has gone up (per Mwh), they pay less pushing even more burden onto everyone else. Plus they get discounts on property taxes, energy tariffs and other taxes, as in the case of Kevin O'Leary's mega-DC in Utah.
But this state interconnect bill is another level of evil because it's pushing the costs onto states that have nothing to do with the data center and won't get any "benefit" (there is no benefit) anyway.
What we need are laws that make these projects pay for their own infrastructure. This might cause them to build near power sources. Great. Away from people, mostly.
The level of regulatory corruption here is actually sickening. Take Elon's Grok DC in Memphis that exploits local laws against clean air by using "mobile" gas turbines in the city of Memphis.
Funny how most people were complaining about lack of infrastructure spending before AI, now that the bills come due it's "WAIT! I'm paying for the thing I use!?!"
Are Americans really getting stickershock from $2B? Lets search some random numbers + "Maryland"
They invested $1B in quantum computing. Crickets.
$10B dollar purple line
$9B dollar missed pension returns, $3B directly to wallstreet hedgefunds POOF! (Explains why the stock market rises as the country takes on more and more debt)
The list literally goes on and on, probably over $30B of sunk costs into either nothing, planning or infrastructure that wasn't properly maintained.
>WBAL News Radio
>6 days ago — Congressman Andy Harris says the cost of the Key Bridge rebuild was
>nearing $10 billion, and that's the reason the state won't go forward
What's the traffic for this $5B-$10B bridge? 34,000.
America's energy infrastructure has been chronically under-invested for the last 60 years, widening the gap between young and old. All the articles talking about the cost of AI are written by entrenched forces that AI have already replace, their free money from infrastructure scams.
applfanboysbgon 1 hours ago [-]
> most people were complaining about lack of infrastructure spending before AI
Presumably they'd like the infrastructure spending to go to infrastructure that improves their lives in some way. I somehow doubt that, when complaining, the vast majority of said people had in mind "let's spend hundreds of billions of dollars on datacenters while everything else crumbles".
ofjcihen 1 hours ago [-]
I think the point is “out of state”.
But also, the price of grid upgrades are more and more often being passed directly to customers and you don’t really get a choice of whether or not you’re a customer.
devindotcom 1 hours ago [-]
you should read the article before commenting
sumeno 54 minutes ago [-]
Yeah, turns out people want things that benefit them and not things that exclusively benefit the billionaires who control AI.
I complain about not enough direct flights from my local airport, if they put in a bunch of direct flights for billionaires only I would complain even harder.
irishcoffee 1 hours ago [-]
Wait, you also agree that state and federal elected officials waste absurd amounts of money? Regularly? With no consequence?!
Was your comment trying to normalize this, or blame citizens?
bparsons 47 minutes ago [-]
I suspect people would want to spend money on infrastructure that benefits them, and not a multi trillion dollar company.
killretards 26 minutes ago [-]
How does it feel being an illiterate retard?
jfengel 9 minutes ago [-]
I suspect he feels pretty good about it. That's the great thing about being stupid. You can be as loudly stupid as you want, and people calling you stupid just affirm that you were right in the first place.
Rendered at 23:19:22 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
The complaint here is that PJM is spending money on upgrading the long range wires and passing that fee in a way that's not calculated for usage but instead it's likely divided evenly amongst member states. If you're upgrading wires in PA why should Maryland pay for that? These would taking in new/higher fees being passed to consumers.
The long range transmission lines are different than short term transmission lines. The long range ones appear someone to hit electricity from a power plant in California for a business in Baltimore.
ETA: utility companies make profit on capex, not opex
https://www.organizedmoney.fm/p/how-private-equity-is-drivin...
https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/data-centers-arent-the-ma...
The grid operator for the northeast, according to my Governor, has been well-behind in building out infrastructure. Of course new datacenters cause more load. But so do new houses (we're building as many as we can) and electric cars, etc.
What’s crazy is the utility company admits that the infrastructure is for the growth in the other states. They admit Maryland won’t grow as fast. They concede Maryland needs less infrastructure. But still saddled Maryland residents with the extra bills for out of state data centers?
I mean, at least say it’s for Maryland. Just to make it look good? I don’t know? Make some kind of attempt to make it palatable.
I’m wondering if it’s just easier to pass the cost on to people in Maryland than it is in other states? Like is the regulatory environment with respect to this kind of thing more lax or something?
There has to be some kind of explanation. Because on the face of it, this just doesn’t look good. It makes ai and tech industry just seem like robber barons. And tech guys don’t need that right now.
And since the grid is being updated to accommodate new paying customers, Maryland will benefit from lower future prices. Right? Right?
Electricity supply is highly regulated. Prices for electricity are constrained and often set by state regulators. These are so-called "usage fees". But beyond that the utility is allowed to charge customers for infrastructure and transmissio and those fees are out of control. We recently had a court case where a North Carolina utility illegally overcharged customers but the judge didn't assign damages because legally the utility could just charge customers for those damages [2]. And the legislature passed laws to protect the utility as well.
This is going to get worse too because private equity is rapidly moving into this market and they know that capex can be entirely pushed onto customers with no recourse.
So the data centers tend to get sweetheart deals on electricity too. So while the total cost of electricity has gone up (per Mwh), they pay less pushing even more burden onto everyone else. Plus they get discounts on property taxes, energy tariffs and other taxes, as in the case of Kevin O'Leary's mega-DC in Utah.
But this state interconnect bill is another level of evil because it's pushing the costs onto states that have nothing to do with the data center and won't get any "benefit" (there is no benefit) anyway.
What we need are laws that make these projects pay for their own infrastructure. This might cause them to build near power sources. Great. Away from people, mostly.
The level of regulatory corruption here is actually sickening. Take Elon's Grok DC in Memphis that exploits local laws against clean air by using "mobile" gas turbines in the city of Memphis.
[1]: https://newsroom.haas.berkeley.edu/research/power-hungry-cry...
[2]: https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/local/no-refunds-for-duke-...
Are Americans really getting stickershock from $2B? Lets search some random numbers + "Maryland"
They invested $1B in quantum computing. Crickets.
$10B dollar purple line
$9B dollar missed pension returns, $3B directly to wallstreet hedgefunds POOF! (Explains why the stock market rises as the country takes on more and more debt)
The list literally goes on and on, probably over $30B of sunk costs into either nothing, planning or infrastructure that wasn't properly maintained.
>WBAL News Radio
>6 days ago — Congressman Andy Harris says the cost of the Key Bridge rebuild was
>nearing $10 billion, and that's the reason the state won't go forward
What's the traffic for this $5B-$10B bridge? 34,000.
America's energy infrastructure has been chronically under-invested for the last 60 years, widening the gap between young and old. All the articles talking about the cost of AI are written by entrenched forces that AI have already replace, their free money from infrastructure scams.
Presumably they'd like the infrastructure spending to go to infrastructure that improves their lives in some way. I somehow doubt that, when complaining, the vast majority of said people had in mind "let's spend hundreds of billions of dollars on datacenters while everything else crumbles".
But also, the price of grid upgrades are more and more often being passed directly to customers and you don’t really get a choice of whether or not you’re a customer.
I complain about not enough direct flights from my local airport, if they put in a bunch of direct flights for billionaires only I would complain even harder.
Was your comment trying to normalize this, or blame citizens?