Six years ago the discussion was about
How could the grid be modernized to accommodate renewable energy?
In 2015, U.S. electric utilities spent $103 billion in capital expenditures to maintain and upgrade the grid — and they now expect average annual spending of around $100 billion through 2018, even if the growth in electricity demand slowed.
Why? Because the gride of the US is old as it developed earlier. To feed a market that used incandescent light bulbs and lifts in urban areas.
According to FERC, the largest spending increases have occurred in the older, more populated systems, which include the Northeast Power Coordinating Council (New York City and Boston), Reliability First (Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, Baltimore-Washington, DC), and the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (Los Angeles, San Francisco).
BEFORE DATA CENTERS:
These two trends combined could raise retail rates significantly for electricity customers, as much as 15% to 30% through 2030, according to one study.
The average mumu thinks the costs of electricity keeps going up because of renewable energy.
Old grids are expensive because you pay for their inefficiencies.
Capital investment accounts for the largest share of distribution costs as utilities work to upgrade aging equipment.
But cut to 2024 and countries need to increase power generation to feed data centers' appetite for electricity. |
