There is an article in the news that the 49K residents at Lake Tahoe have until May 2027 to find a new power provider. NV Energy is cutting them off to provide its production capacity to a data center.
We have 10 operating data centers in my area with three more planned. The largest of these uses up to 600K gallons of water per day. This area is attractive because of the lakes. But that water is also used for hydro power production, reactor cooling at the nuke plant, and the municipal water supply for the surrounding area. One of the regional water authorities has just asked residents to cut back on usage because of the drought, and the drought has only been going on for a month with scattered showers every few days. It is supposed to start raining tonight and continue for the next several days, but daily totals are only projected to be about a half inch per day.
Then there's the power usage.
When temps hit triple digits here, the power companies start calling for residents to cut back on power usage, and that was before the data centers. Decades ago the large power company here built a special lake in the mountains to cover peak demand. They reverse the hydros at night and pump it full. During the day they use that stored water to meet demand. Costs them more to do this than they can recoup in electric bills, but that's what it takes to keep things running. Now if they had to have that starting 35 years ago to meet peak, what are they going to do now.
And guess what...the data centers and other industrial users are exempt from having to curtail usage when residents have to.
We have 10 operating data centers in my area with three more planned. The largest of these uses up to 600K gallons of water per day. This area is attractive because of the lakes. But that water is also used for hydro power production, reactor cooling at the nuke plant, and the municipal water supply for the surrounding area. One of the regional water authorities has just asked residents to cut back on usage because of the drought, and the drought has only been going on for a month with scattered showers every few days. It is supposed to start raining tonight and continue for the next several days, but daily totals are only projected to be about a half inch per day.
Then there's the power usage.
When temps hit triple digits here, the power companies start calling for residents to cut back on power usage, and that was before the data centers. Decades ago the large power company here built a special lake in the mountains to cover peak demand. They reverse the hydros at night and pump it full. During the day they use that stored water to meet demand. Costs them more to do this than they can recoup in electric bills, but that's what it takes to keep things running. Now if they had to have that starting 35 years ago to meet peak, what are they going to do now.
And guess what...the data centers and other industrial users are exempt from having to curtail usage when residents have to.
