DIGITAL INSIGHTS - Facts, Not Narratives: What the Data Really Say About Electricity Prices
A new study out of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in Berkeley, California, is raising new policy questions around energy and prices.
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
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Digital Insights is a weekly feature usually appearing on Thursdays that explores the role of data centers in our region. These columns will focus on four areas: tracking the development of data centers in our area, exploring projected and actual tax revenue trends, explaining what data centers are and how they affect our daily lives, and reporting on research and emerging trends in the industry. These columns are made possible, in part, by a grant from Stack Infrastructure.
A new report from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and The Brattle Group — Factors influencing recent trends in retail electricity prices in the United States — has raised a lot of eyebrows in recent weeks. (View the slide deck that summarizes the study.)
The conclusion that has drawn the most attention is this: “Load growth at the state level has tended to depress retail electricity prices in recent years…unclear to what degree this will hold in the future.”
So what has caused energy price increases if not load growth?
According to the study, it was the replacement and hardening of aging distribution and transmission infrastructure, as well as extreme weather and natural gas variability.
This analysis adds considerable nuance to the debate over what is causing the spike in electricity.
To better understand the study and how it affects the public discussion, Digital Insights turns its analysis over to Del. David Alan Reid, a Democrat from Loudon County representing House District 28 who wrote an insightful piece about the report and what it says about energy prices, as well as the public discussion we have around them.
“Electricity prices are rising primarily because our infrastructure is old and utilities are investing to modernize it,” Reid writes. “Blaming data centers might score quick political points, but it distracts from the real challenge of rebuilding and securing the grid.”
Dig into this fascinating study. Both for the details about what’s driving energy costs, as the way those factors are being discussed in the public forum.
There’s a great deal to unpack, and it leads to a fascinating range of policy discussions.
Facts, Not Narratives: What the Data Really Say About Electricity Prices
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"Diversify Thy Revenue Stream', Fredericksburg
Piedmont Environmental Council: The SCC MUST PROTECT RATEPAYERS from big tech's skyrocketing energy bill":
https://www.pecva.org/region/albemarle-charlottesville-region/the-scc-must-protect-ratepayers-from-big-techs-skyrocketing-energy-bill/
Well, I did as asked. And went a little farther.
Did you know that Stack Infrastructure, the group paying for this series, doesn't appear to have a thing todo with the Substack Forum, as I assumed by the name and who the grant was being awarded to?
I didn't.
Turns out, its a rather large company that builds data centers. Including around here. Not that there's anything wrong with that, per se, but still - you would think it would be nice to know.
I know when other journalistic forums write an article that has anything to do with a donor, they always make it clear that they have a policy that clearly states such donors have no influence on content.
Interesting the same didn't happen here.
Anyway, still an informative article.
One was its naming of the costs of more extreme weather events in energy pricing. With much data showing how these extremities are statistically driven by the underlying costs of using fossil fuels - seems like a statistical argument could and should be made to increase the upfront costs of using such fuels to offset the end costs of damage from it. Even realizing that there are other costs which are NOT captured, such as poorer health outcomes, ocean acidification, etc.
Slide 6 - which indicates that residential prices are up much higher than commercial and industrial, due to the greater negotiating and donation power of those entities (including data centers) to politicians to favor their sectors over residents/every day citizens.
And then Slide 9, where, though it tries to celebrate the overall improvement in the percentage of people who are behind on their energy bills dropped from 20 mill to 17.5 mill, (talk about your spin), I was shocked to learn that more than 1 out of every 3 Americans forego a necessity to pay their energy bill. And 1 out of 4 are unable to pay it in full. Hardly seems like the group that we should be gouging to ease the suffering of billionaires in my book, but then again - I'm not receiving any grants from them....
Recently there was another article talking about Rappahannock Electric Coop looking to get into the nuclear game to meet the power needs of data centers in this area. Not necessarily a bad thing, but still, that's another nuclear reactor just upwind of where we live. That will be a risk for twice the length of current recorded history. And creates a more centralized grid rather than diversified one. Always a target for terrorists, war, or natural disaster.
We are assured by our betters that yes, it is complicated, but if we will just trust folks like Stack Infrastructure, and the benefits will just trickle down to us all.
Yet I fear what will happen when, with such influential power, and coopted guardians, we are told that we need to limit our water to accommodate them. Or eminent domain is used to provide their power line, and once again - as is already happening as shown by their own study - everyday people have to bear the brunt of their electrical costs.
When vaguely promised revenue isn't delivered because there's a loophole in the tax laws if the equipment is classified as banking equipment rather than data - as recently happened in Manassas. Or when, 10 years from now, technology and innovations reduce the size/energy needs - and we are left to clean up the mess.
Too often, something like this has been rushed through, and those who did not directly receive the benefit are left holding the bag. Either with ruined finances, fouled resources, or - in this case - loss of liberty as more control of our information is quietly signed over to oligarchs.
So pardon me when I take it with a bag of salt when someone comes up out of the blue and tells me there's nothing to worry about.
How's that song go?
"When there's a doubt, then there is no doubt...."
Stack Infrastructure.
Nice name. Not as sure of their intent.