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Power Shortages And Tech Industry

Posted by Hemos on from the no-dissassemble-johhny-five! dept.

TheGeneration writes: "Power shortages in San Francisco, and Silicon Valley have caused power providers to demand that Intel and other tech industry biggies to use less power. Things may get bad enough that rolling blackouts have been warned. The story is reported by the AP. "

1 of 356 comments (clear)

  1. Way off base by cprael · · Score: 5
    Most of the comments posted so far has been pretty far off base. There are actually several reasons stated for the stage 3 alert called yesterday:

    • A large number of generators have been running flat out since this summer, and need maintenance. Most of the generators in CA have pretty much been running non-stop since early this summer, and need necessary maintenance work. The result is that ~11,000 MW of capacity was offline yesterday. Given that the (potential) shortfall was ~500 MW, that's a big hit.
    • Prices in CA aren't competitive, driving a lot of power out of state. Most CA power distributors (remember, generators and distributors are generally separated now) buy their power under short-term agreements (nobody had the foresight to sign long-term deals, locking in prices). The CA rate top-end is around $250/MW, which is significantly below the rates available out of state. The result? A lot of power gets exported at the same time there's a shortage in CA.
    • Older generators and rampant NIMBYism. Most generators in CA are older plants (20+ years). There's been a widespread attack of NIMBYism since then, preventing construction of new plants. San Jose, for example, just gave the finger to a new ~650MW plant next to the new Cisco campus. Similarly, there's a town on the central coast whose name completely escapes me who is vigorously fighting a plan by the local PP owner to remove the existing (BIG) plant, and replace it with a smaller,lower-profile plant. The locals have decided they want it replaced with a bare lot. Another 500MW of capacity lost.
    • Server farms are bigger power consumers. A given office space converted to server farm space will consume ~4x as much power.
    Now, if you think this is bad, wait until next week. There's a cold front due in.

    OBTW-- For those who think the Christmas lights are the big villain - think again. The alert was called at 5:15PM, before the lights went on.