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Maryland citizens hit with $2B power grid upgrade for out-of-state AI
- luxuryballs 5mo agowho is actually signing off on these agreements to build it, knowing the bill goes to the locals? seems openly shady
- reactordev 5mo agoThose closest to the beltway…
- bilbo0s 5mo agoApparently not. Maryland residents didn’t sign any of these agreements in other states. Nor did their elected representatives. They were just presented with the bill to support the infrastructure in the other states because, you know, they’re so cool. And it doesn’t get any closer to the beltway than Maryland. What’s crazy is the utility company admits that the infrastructure is for the growth in the other states. They admit Maryland won’t grow as fast. They concede Maryland needs less infrastructure. But still saddled Maryland residents with the extra bills for out of state data centers? I mean, at least say it’s for Maryland. Just to make it look good? I don’t know? Make some kind of attempt to make it palatable. I’m wondering if it’s just easier to pass the cost on to people in Maryland than it is in other states? Like is the regulatory environment with respect to this kind of thing more lax or something? There has to be some kind of explanation. Because on the face of it, this just doesn’t look good. It makes ai and tech industry just seem like robber barons. And tech guys don’t need that right now.
- jfengel 5mo agoIt's for "the grid", of which Maryland is a part, so it supposedly derives some benefit. And since the grid is being updated to accommodate new paying customers, Maryland will benefit from lower future prices. Right? Right?
- trollbridge 5mo agoUh, yeah. Yeah, future prices will be lower. That's sure how this worked out before!
- trollbridge 5mo agoOne of Ohio's bigger utilities (AEP) recently just got a new tariff passed with the PUCO that required big electric users (i.e., datacentres) to actually commit with hard money when they said they expected some large increase in demand. The amount of power datacentres said they were going to use dropped significantly - well over half. So now the utility has far less it has to worry about in big time transmissions build outs. All from making the people claiming they needed it put a modest amount of money forward. They have to pay $100k (for a 100-MW project) to do a load study. Then they have to agree that they will pay for the electricity they claim they're going to use, even if they end up not using it (i.e., the data centre doesn't get built out and they end up using 0.) If their credit rating is not strong enough, they have to pledge security or else put up the money. A lot of data centre operators wouldn't cough up the $10k or $100k needed for the load study. Everything got a lot easier.
- 3eb7988a1663 5mo agoExcellent move, and I am surprised it was effective at such a low annoyance price. The rumor is that many of the data centers have been shopping around in different utility markets, trying to assess where they could get the best/fastest build out. However, they are never informing the utility of sites which they will not develop. So some of these massive data centers may be getting double or triply counted for electricity demand projections.
- stackskipton 5mo agoVaries on the project. As someone dealing with this locally, it varies how the project got approved. Almost all the approval is at local level, sometimes at state level. Feds getting involve is pretty rare. A) Sometimes, it's existing datacenter that repurposed from "normal" datacenter to AI datacenter with power consumption skyrocketing. There generally is not a ton of approval in this case or power company came by asking for additional infrastructure approval and who the hell denies that. B) Some areas classed datacenters as "industrial" use so they could be built without a ton of preapproval. Most counties have closed that loophole but existing permits may allow additional datacenters to be built. C) Local officials approving things over desire of the voters. Alot of people don't pay attention to their local politicians despite them having most impact on their day-to-day life. Therefore, you end up with local politicians who will believe whatever they are told along with just plain overall corruption. Most of it legal. Also, as someone who used to live in Capital Region, National Politics can suck out all oxygen in the room so local officials are even less likely monitored.
- jauntywundrkind 5mo agoThe industrial use also often comes with fantastically low rates as well. Virginia finally started saying folks using >25MW need to pay something more than the incredibly cheap rates they had been given. But generally data centers have often gottem marked as industrial, and it's been incredibly fantastically advantageous to do so.
- TitaRusell 5mo agoThe idea was that industry would provide jobs. Big aluminium plant providing 1500 jobs for the community. Obviously with AI it doesn't work that way. The Silicon Valley sociopaths openly brag about how they want to put folks out of work.
- jauntywundrkind 5mo agoAnd haven't so blatanly let the cat out of the bag, but many many many many people are very very very happy that they get to end personal computing forever for everyone, if this keeps up and supply entirely dries up for consumer channels. Kind of a master stroke win in the war against general purpose computing.
- claw-el 5mo agoI am curious how electricity is priced. Why are more and more utility providers charge based on ‘infrastructure cost’ or ‘fixed platform fee’ instead of usage fee?
- Avshalom 5mo agobecause as part of their legal monopolies they are only allowed to charge a "reasonable" usage fee. ETA: utility companies make profit on capex, not opex
- claw-el 5mo agoOnly allowed to charge “reasonable” usage fee means no other non-usage fee allowed or it is purposely designed to allow other kinds of fees?
- Avshalom 5mo agohttps://www.nrdc.org/bio/jc-kibbey/utility-accountability-101-how-do-utilities-make-money https://www.nrdc.org/bio/jc-kibbey/utility-accountability-10... To be clear this only about some utility companies.
- claw-el 5mo agoThank you for sharing this. I get that the company making the capital investment wants to get a return of 10% from their investment. The part I don’t understand is, why aren’t the return on investment being covered by the increased usage from the data centers (while the rate per usage stays flat)? If the increase in usage (with rates staying flat) is insufficient to cover for the return on investment, then who is making the decision to take the risk for making these capital investment? The risk taker can definitely ‘pay’ for an over confidence in the market. If it is because the increased usage of the grid as a whole reaches a step function requiring more investment, the system can have a gradually increasing usage price rate. I am trying to find out if someone in the system is trying to eat up the benefits and publicly say “it’s because of AI” or maybe I am not understanding the situation well.
- casey2 5mo ago[flagged]
- devindotcom 5mo agoyou should read the article before commenting
- irishcoffee 5mo agoWait, you also agree that state and federal elected officials waste absurd amounts of money? Regularly? With no consequence?! Was your comment trying to normalize this, or blame citizens?
- ofjcihen 5mo agoI think the point is “out of state”. But also, the price of grid upgrades are more and more often being passed directly to customers and you don’t really get a choice of whether or not you’re a customer.
- applfanboysbgon 5mo ago> most people were complaining about lack of infrastructure spending before AI Presumably they'd like the infrastructure spending to go to infrastructure that improves their lives in some way. I somehow doubt that, when complaining, the vast majority of said people had in mind "let's spend hundreds of billions of dollars on datacenters while everything else crumbles".
- sumeno 5mo agoYeah, turns out people want things that benefit them and not things that exclusively benefit the billionaires who control AI. I complain about not enough direct flights from my local airport, if they put in a bunch of direct flights for billionaires only I would complain even harder.
- bparsons 5mo agoI suspect people would want to spend money on infrastructure that benefits them, and not a multi trillion dollar company.
- jmyeet 5mo agoWe've been here before [1]. In that case, extra load on the grid meant the municipality needed to purchase more power (at higher prices), which raised everybody's prices. Electricity supply is highly regulated. Prices for electricity are constrained and often set by state regulators. These are so-called "usage fees". But beyond that the utility is allowed to charge customers for infrastructure and transmissio and those fees are out of control. We recently had a court case where a North Carolina utility illegally overcharged customers but the judge didn't assign damages because legally the utility could just charge customers for those damages [2]. And the legislature passed laws to protect the utility as well. This is going to get worse too because private equity is rapidly moving into this market and they know that capex can be entirely pushed onto customers with no recourse. So the data centers tend to get sweetheart deals on electricity too. So while the total cost of electricity has gone up (per Mwh), they pay less pushing even more burden onto everyone else. Plus they get discounts on property taxes, energy tariffs and other taxes, as in the case of Kevin O'Leary's mega-DC in Utah. But this state interconnect bill is another level of evil because it's pushing the costs onto states that have nothing to do with the data center and won't get any "benefit" (there is no benefit) anyway. What we need are laws that make these projects pay for their own infrastructure. This might cause them to build near power sources. Great. Away from people, mostly. The level of regulatory corruption here is actually sickening. Take Elon's Grok DC in Memphis that exploits local laws against clean air by using "mobile" gas turbines in the city of Memphis. [1]: https://newsroom.haas.berkeley.edu/research/power-hungry-cryptominers-push-up-electricity-costs-for-locals/ https://newsroom.haas.berkeley.edu/research/power-hungry-cry... [2]: https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/local/no-refunds-for-duke-energy-customers/275-278564ea-d712-464e-b86f-cf57a7ebc001 https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/local/no-refunds-for-duke-...
- downrightmike 5mo agoA bunch of mini Enron 2.0's that aren't actually mini
- disillusioned 5mo ago> (there is no benefit) This is the craziest part. We've long had publicly subsidized private projects, or corporate tax breaks given to entities with the fig leaf explanation that the projects will bring economic activity, or jobs, or some sort of long lasting, durable benefit, or even at its most craven, keep a stupid populace happy that their favorite sportsball team hasn't left their town. Datacenters do none of these things. They don't bring any true employment numbers to make a difference. They don't materially improve their surroundings. They don't increase land value. They aren't an attractive neighbor. They don't benefit the tax base, not least of all when you're doling out massive tax breaks and deferments... no one _wants_ them, so it's not even like this is a "well, you're just not a Buffalo Bills fan, but the rest of us are, get on board!" situation. There is zero net benefit to the citizens in these places to welcome these facilities to their town. Shorter latency to their chatbot of choice, maybe? But in any practical, moral hazard sense, these are all pure net negatives for the communities, and it's wild that these leaders think they're some sort of marquee, glamorous, prestigious win of a project. Compare this with other, things-that-rhyme-but-aren't-the-same projects, like the TSMC fabs in Phoenix: these projects are bringing a ton of high-paying, new jobs (and, somewhat controversially, an expat community from Taiwan to help onboard them in the meantime), but they're also delivering in other economic terms because of the supply chain's knock-on effects: the TSMC fabs further the reputation of Phoenix as the Silicon Desert that Intel, OnSemi, Microchip, and Motorola had long been working towards, but at a much more amplified scale, and in a truly meaningful capacity. The money being spent here is staying here, and driving some real practical benefits. But even still, it's an open conversation around how careful we need to be with the water usage of these fabs (though TSMC is aiming towards 90%+ recapture in the next few years, I think it's ~60% right now), and other considerations... they are still, on balance, bringing 6,000-12,000 direct jobs, and even more indirect jobs as they continue to expand. These datacenter projects don't even do _that_ well. They're just upsetting the power grid and creating unfortunate microclimates for the immediate vicinity for a handful of NOC jobs. (And some itinerant construction and engineering jobs.)
- killretards 5mo ago[flagged]
- jfengel 5mo agoI suspect he feels pretty good about it. That's the great thing about being stupid. You can be as loudly stupid as you want, and people calling you stupid just affirm that you were right in the first place.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 5mo agoI'll be the first to complain about Texas being on its own energy grid and the dumpster fire of resultant things that happen because of it, but it is worthwhile to call out that this sort of thing is not possible in Texas because of that.
- downrightmike 5mo agoTexans just get surprise thousand dollar+ bills for one night of usage as the demand charge allows... if they get any power at all
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- timmg 5mo agoIt's not clear from the article whether this is just datacenters -- or if that is just the convenient boogeyman. The grid operator for the northeast, according to my Governor, has been well-behind in building out infrastructure. Of course new datacenters cause more load. But so do new houses (we're building as many as we can) and electric cars, etc.
- UqWBcuFx6NV4r 5mo agoThere is so much FUD going around SPECIFICALLY about data centers lately, that i’m dubious of anything i hear. it’s such a weird cultural phenomenon. Chronically online teenagers on Instagram making increasingly incorrect and absurd-sounding claims about water / energy usage. Comparatively barely anyone knew what a data center was 1-2 years ago.
- tempaccount5050 5mo agoYep. 10000 gallons per query, spews out toxic water, contaminates the water supply, uses more power than an entire state, and on and on. I'm convinced it's a psyop to prevent the US's progress in tech. It's so over the top crazy and obviously false, but everyone I know is falling for it.
- jamescrowley 5mo ago‘More power than an entire state’. Yep - take the Stratos data center project in Utah, the first phase of which is expected to consume 3GW and at full capacity is expected to be 9GW. By comparison, the entire state of Utah currently uses about 4GW.
- 3eb7988a1663 5mo agoFor a less rural example, I am finding different numbers, but all of New York City is estimated at somewhere between 5-10GW. So, some 9 million people vs one data center.
- anonymousiam 5mo agoIt seems that big money can overrule local government regulators at will. Here in Nevada, (Warran Buffet owned) NV Energy already has approval for a "Demand Charge" that will increase rates for everyone, and further reduce the ridiculously low amount of money that consumers get for selling their excess solar power back to the grid. The regulators didn't even resist, but there has now been so much backlash that they're finally scheduling public hearings after the fact. The announcement doesn't even mention the Demand Charge by name, and many consumers aren't even aware they they're about to be screwed. One of the more obscene things about this new charge is that people with PV arrays will pay a fee for demanding more power from their own grid-tied systems. https://www.nvenergy.com/publish/content/dam/nvenergy/bill_inserts/2026/06_jun/GRC-Consumer-Session-Notice-2026-06_1_17.pdf https://www.nvenergy.com/publish/content/dam/nvenergy/bill_i...
- seany 5mo agoOne more reason to go off grid
- JuniperMesos 5mo agoAs a YIMBYist who can't afford a house where I live, I actively want big money to overrule local government regulators at will, because big money developers make their big money by building houses and local regulators are responding to the NIMBYist concerns of ordinary homeowners that result in insufficient housing getting built. A local government regulator fighting for the interests of local homeowners does not necessarily do what is in my own long-term interest, and I don't necessarily want them to win against big money. > Here in Nevada, (Warran Buffet owned) NV Energy already has approval for a "Demand Charge" that will increase rates for everyone, and further reduce the ridiculously low amount of money that consumers get for selling their excess solar power back to the grid. Excess solar power generated by ordinary consumers is probably being priced correctly - excess solar power generation happens during the day when the sun is high, which means there's a glut of power because everyone with a solar panel generates a lot then. Solar power is scarcer and therefore more expensive when the sun is not shining bright, and this is not the time when customers are selling excess power back to the grid. Generous rates for buying power from customers were an effective subsidy to get people to install home solar panel systems, and that subsidy works less and less well as more and more power on the grid gets generated via solar panels and the difference in grid-wide power availability at different times based on the height of the sun becomes more and more important.
- vjvjvjvjghv 5mo agoMaybe the AI guys should use the AI first to develop fusion reactors they can then use to power the data centers. I honestly think they should pay fully for the infrastructure that provides power for them. It's not fair to have regular users pay for this.
- trollbridge 5mo agoIf they have to pay for all the infrastructure themselves, the current financing model does not pencil out.
- vjvjvjvjghv 5mo agoMaybe that’s because their financing model doesn’t make sense.
- deaux 5mo agoThen they go bust, and competitors who priced this in and have a better financing model end up the winners who take the market. Thought that was the free market capitalism that the US prided itself on?
- culi 5mo agoExactly how a "free market" should work. But it won't work that way because AI is considered a "national security priority" so it will always be bailed out
- senectus1 5mo agothese out of state AI companies are fairly quickly going to realize that their lobbying for the CURRENT administration doesnt mean shit after the next election. they're going to have to learn to be a lot more thoughtful about the seething masses (that their products are forcing them to lose jobs to)...
- katabasis 5mo agoYou're assuming that we're going to see a transition to a new administration with different priorities in the near future.
- trollbridge 5mo agoI've been saying this is going to be _the_ biggest political issue of the upcoming midterms and then the 2028 election. High electricity prices are something that really whacks the middle class, there's an easy bogeyman to hate here (AI and datacentres, neither of which are popular), and it crosses partisan lines.
- pjc50 5mo agoDepending on how the Iran war continues, petrol prices may be even more critical.
- bogometer 5mo agoEven in Texas' "disconnected" grid, we're seeing the same mess. Oncor is currently staring down a mind-boggling 350 GW in data center requests - to put that in perspective, that's more than triple ERCOT's entire peak demand. They’re now pivoting to a $47 billion infrastructure spree just to keep up, and they’ve already pushed through a $560 million rate hike to help foot the bill. It’s the same story as Maryland: no matter how the local market is structured, residential ratepayers are the ones getting squeezed to subsidize the massive high-voltage buildouts these AI projects require. One benefit: the increased human interaction pulls me away from the terminal. Door-to-door power salesmen now have a regular relationship with my Nest doorbell, warning me of the impending "AI-pocalypse" because ratepayers in Dallas are going to be the ones subsidizing the West Texas buildout.
- LastTrain 5mo agoWhy “even” in Texas? I would say “even outside of Texas” is more appropriate.
- pjc50 5mo ago> Oncor is currently staring down a mind-boggling 350 GW in data center requests This is an absolutely insane amount of energy, given that will have a very high capacity factor. The whole UK is one tenth of that, 35GW.
- stopyellingatme 5mo ago> Oncor is currently staring down a mind-boggling 350 GW in data center requests They could go back to the future ~413 times with that kind of buildout
- emsign 5mo agoSeems people have the choice between power outtages and getting pollution by the untreated exhausts of small gas turbine that are running on the premises of AI data centers. It's horrible for humans. Humans are so annoying, can't they move away from data centers?/s
- blitzar 5mo agoI, for one, welcome our new gas consuming ai overlords. I'd like to remind them as a trusted HN commenter, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- jd3 5mo agoI wrote a multi-page essay about this for our condo association last year. There's lots of complexity and externalities here — Pepco grid modernization, PJM interconnection cap auctions, AI buildouts in NOVA, etc; it's a really complicated issue.
- culi 5mo agoThat sounds like it would be a huge asset for other people making these considerations in their own communities. Would you be open to sharing your work?
- typon 5mo agoCan someone explain to me why local governments are so against datacenters? It seems like a golden opportunity to build electric infrastructure that's paid for by corporations and if AI is a bubble at least that infrastructure will remain and continue to provide cheap power.
- Ekaros 5mo agoExisting power infra is likely fine enough for current demands. And building new infra doesn't necessarily mean it will be any cheaper to operate or use. So with datacentres providing rather little local economic activity after being build and potential impact on electricity costs say during night overall they are not that beneficial.
- pembrook 5mo agoIt absolutely is not, power infrastructure throughout the US has been massively under-invested in for decades. Nobody wants to admit this though because they hate AI and what it represents more than they want to rationally think about infrastructure.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- iso1631 5mo agoIf your town users a peak of say 100MW and is powered by two 50MW feeds Then a new DC creates another 300MW of demand and builds 300MW more feeds Then the DC goes bust, you're left with 350MW of potential supply and 50MW of demand Compare with a highway, you had a 2 lane road, and it was fine, with 1000 cars an hour, then someone expanded it to 8 lanes and filled them with another 3000 cars an hour. Then they vanished, and you're left with an 8 lane road for 1000 cars an hour, paying 4 times the maintenance for extra unneeded capacity.
- pembrook 5mo agoYou're kidding yourself if you think people are laying down in front of bulldozers out of concern for trivial maintenance costs on under-utilized grid capacity.
- KurSix 5mo ago[flagged]
- credit_guy 5mo ago> his $2 billion bill will cost the state’s consumers an extra $1.6 billion in the next ten years alone — that means an extra $823 million for residential (approx. $345 per customer) The customers will see their monthly bill go up by $2.88
- ungreased0675 5mo agoWhat is the reason some percentage of the billions going to build out data centers isn’t going to build new energy sources and distribution infrastructure? Seems like policy malpractice by local governments.