Henrico County is a major hub for data centers in Virginia. Its officials said it expects a 25% rise in electricity costs next year, and advised workers to close the blinds and turn off their computers to make up for it.
When there’s no reason to run a second set of extremely expensive infrastructure to people’s homes, it needs government oversight. That government oversight should have established a median electricity usage level for businesses and residences, and applied pricing accordingly - with tiers based on usage levels. Every 1000kwh, the price goes up. Small houses get electricity effectively for cost of delivery, while data centres pay for what they use and more.
But then the data centres might be in another county and we couldn’t lose the 2 full time jobs!
I think the term is Natural Monopoly.
When there’s no reason to run a second set of extremely expensive infrastructure to people’s homes, it needs government oversight. That government oversight should have established a median electricity usage level for businesses and residences, and applied pricing accordingly - with tiers based on usage levels. Every 1000kwh, the price goes up. Small houses get electricity effectively for cost of delivery, while data centres pay for what they use and more.
But then the data centres might be in another county and we couldn’t lose the 2 full time jobs!