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Open original source ↗The simple solution for hyperscalers is as follows:
Option A: agree to a higher rate base with the utility so that you can guarantee people in the local geography won’t see increased electricity rates.
Option B: agree to pay for resi solar + storage for local citizens so they won’t see increased electricity rates.
Either way, if the hyperscalers don’t use their gobs of free cashflow to cushion the inflation of electricity rates, you should expect to see a lot more pushback.
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First Google in Indiana and now Microsoft in Wisconsin. The local and political pushback against data centers is just getting started and will quickly snowball if there isn’t more education around the composition of residential electricity rates and what’s driving the increase region to region. Hyperscalers need to get serious (even though they very much are) on get in in front of this issue with bringing on new capacity, singing clean sources of power, and/or putting up the capital or providing it through a bilateral deal to ensure that ratepayers are not on the hook for their needed new energy infrastructure for AI.
ShanuMathew93 ↗