Do Utilities Care About Clean Energy at All?
Michigan Advance recently made the point that when the state pitches data center companies to locate there, they ask for guarantees on clean energy use. In theory, the use of clean energy increases the utility’s supply. It implies that the use of fossil fuels will not rise. And, it almost guarantees that if there are no new energy sources, the utility has few options. One is to increase what residential customers pay. It doesn’t seem to matter to the data center owners what to pay residential bills to keep rates low.
The Environmental Law and Policy Center has gone on record. It says data centers may carry “more risk, more costs” for an increase in customer bills. And, it points out that these residents will not be the cause of the increased electricity needed.
The clean energy goals of 2040 set their goal post for net-zero carbon emissions. This is very unrealistic. Massive data centers will be online in the next two years. If AI is the most important technology in history, this build-out will accelerate quickly. Some experts believe that AI data centers could take a third of all electricity consumption by the end of this decade. I’d so the collision between residential and data center customers is less than five years away
Consumers Left Out In The Cold
Utilities can make promises about their use of clean energy. However, only recently, President Trump has destroyed the future of offshore wind. Coal has already started a comeback. Data centers are promising something they cannot give
Residential customers will be left holding the bag.
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