• ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net
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    7 hours ago

    Why is everyone so confused about this? This is not about paying for electricity. It’s about infrastructure.

    Say you want to open a solar panel factory in Tennessee. You will need 5 MW of power. You go to the utility company and ask if they will be able to provide it. Turns out that they don’t have this capacity in your location and that they will have to add a substation or something.

    Who should pay for it?

    Usually the government does. The government supports development of industry and businesses by providing necessary infrastructure. Saying that some businesses now have to pay for the infrastructure themselves is discriminatory. It’s great that they are discriminating datacenters but it’s not obvious or universal.

    • LetThereBeNick@lemmy.zip
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      6 hours ago

      Data centers demand enormous grid increases on short notice. That is why they are “discriminated” against

      • ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net
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        6 hours ago

        No, they are discriminated against because they are bad for everyone and they don’t want them there. If they offered benefits the state would expand the infrastructure.

        I don’t think the state has some predefined time to expand the infrastructure. Where I live the request come in, companies can reserve the capacity and get it when it’s available. There are long term plans that let companies know when they will get it. If they have to wait for too long in one place they go somewhere else. I thinks this is more about kicking datacenters out of the queue, not having to work “on short notice”.

    • heartSagan5@lemmy.zip
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      7 hours ago

      And now data center owners start competing electrical companies. This’ll be an interesting experiment.