President Donald Trump's administration will "unleash" constraints on an estimated 35GW of backup power generation as part of an effort to support the build out of artificial intelligence data centers, US energy secretary Chris Wright said.
Allowing backup generators to run more often will be "massive" toward increasing the electric grid's ability to meet peak demand without requiring the costly development of additional firm generating capacity, Wright said. Data center developers have been facing years-long waits to interconnect to the grid because of a shortage of generating capacity that can meet their demand for vast amounts of around-the-clock power.
"We have 35GW of backup generators that are sitting here today, and you can't turn them on," Wright said at Energy Dialogues' North American Gas Forum in Washington, DC. "Like, that's just nuts, emissions rules or whatever."
Wright did not elaborate on what actions the administration might take to "unleash" the backup generators or provide further details on the characteristics of the 35GW of generation. Federal air pollution regulations currently limit some backup generators with internal combustion engines to running for no more than 50 hours each year in non-emergency situations. The US Department of Energy has authority to waive some power plant emission limits during emergencies.
Data center developers are facing increasing opposition from the public in some areas, in part because of concerns that their enormous electricity demand is increasing utility bills for consumers. The independent market monitor for the PJM Interconnection, the largest US electric grid, filed a complaint last week urging federal regulators to block new data center interconnections until there is sufficient grid capacity to reliably serve their load.
Wright acknowledged that "everyone's already angry" in rural areas where there has been a surge of data center construction because their utility bills have increased. But Wright argued that higher utility bills were because of inadequate increases to the electricity supply, and he argued that expediting the buildout of data centers will actually reduce electricity prices by allowing existing infrastructure to be used more frequently.
"Those rural people pissed at those data center guys, they should actually hug and kiss them," Wright said.
Because of their small size, backup generators are more costly to operate than conventional power plants. Wright said that despite the high costs, it would be cheaper to operate backup generators during a limited number of hours each year than building entirely new power plants.
