The explosion of data centers could threaten the stability of the power grid this winter, according to industry regulators.
Across North America, electricity demand this winter is expected to increase 2.5% from last year, totaling 20 gigawatts, the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) said in a report released this week. In recent years, winter demand growth has been less than 1%.
Mark Olson, NERC’s reliability assessment manager, told E&E News that data centers are driving a significant portion of that growth, particularly in “high data center development regions” in the mid-Atlantic, western U.S. and southeastern U.S. regions.
The report specifically points to data center expansion in Texas, which it says “contributes to the continued risk of supply shortages.” This statistic may be especially concerning for Texans who suffered widespread power outages during a severe cold snap nearly five years ago.
At the time, natural gas power plants were shut down due to frozen wellheads, reducing natural gas supplies. Meanwhile, demand for fossil fuels soared as residential and commercial customers tried to keep their homes and offices warm. (The governor publicly condemned wind turbines, even though he knew they were only a small part of the problem.)
NERC said the situation in Texas is likely not as dire as it was in February 2021, in part because so many batteries have been added to the state’s power grid this year. When gas-fired power plants cannot provide power as intended, these batteries can provide power instead. Additionally, they can react more quickly to small fluctuations than “peaker” power plants, which mostly run on natural gas and take several minutes to start up.
Still, the situation in Texas is not entirely clear.
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Most of the batteries deployed in Texas can provide power for several hours at a time. This is suitable for situations where demand tends to peak briefly, such as in the evening when people return from work.
However, as NERC points out, data centers tend to consume power consistently throughout the day. If a prolonged cold snap hits the state, it will be more difficult to keep batteries charged enough to power all customers, including data centers, NERC said.
If this winter passes without major storms, NERC predicts there will be no problems with the power grid in any region. But the group said there have been four severe storms in the past five years that could force grid operators to import power, ask large customers to cut back on electricity use or, as a last resort, implement rolling blackouts.
