Data centers flourish in Texas. What does this mean for the network?

The rise of artificial intelligence, economy and increasing computing needs in daily life have led to the expansion of data centers, which prompted the increased demand for electricity in Texas and all over the country.

The main network operator in Texas predicts the demand for energy Almost weakness By 2030, partly due to more network delivery requests from senior users such as databases, encryption mining facilities, hydrogen production stations and oil and gas companies.

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump Stargate announced a joint venture Between Openai, SoftBank and Oracle, which will invest up to $ 500 billion in the prosecutor’s infrastructure.

Texas will act as Ground Zero, with 10 databases by the project already under construction in the state, and 10 others on the road and the first project in Abyan, The CEO of Oracle Larry Ellson said. Each building will run half a million square feet.

This advertisement reflected the hunger of data centers throughout the industries and pushed over years to increase the data capacity. Ellison indicated that the partnership was working for years. He said that new data centers can provide services such as maintaining electronic health care records and helping hospitals to exchange medical knowledge.

“The demand for digital services is still increasing and remains necessary to build our capabilities on the economy of the twenty -first century,” said Dan Dioro, director of state policy at the data center, a commercial group in the industry. “Texas is uniquely preparing to take advantage of it.”

This expansion – as well as other large energy users and factors such as population growth and harsh weather – will extend the network over the next decade, raising questions about how Texas meets high demand for energy while ensuring the ability to withstand costs and reliability of daily consumers.

Data centers in Texas

Data centers-which provide home servers that provide computing power and fans and cooling units needed to maintain the equipment from high temperature-are intense energy facilities that operate around the clock throughout the week.

Large data centers can require 100 megawatts or more, and consume the same amount of energy per year by 350,000 to 400,000 electric cars, according to International Energy Agency. In other words, a largest amount of electricity such as medium -sized power plant can be used, according to US Energy Information Administration estimates.

Texas has seen a rapid increase in data capacity thanks to relatively cheap energy prices in the state, and the ease with which to connect to the network facilities and its tax and organizational environment.

Companies generally employ about 50 to 150 or more employees in each data center, in addition to a group of construction and maintenance contractors, according to the data center coalition, which is estimated that each job in a data center has supported six jobs in other places in the economy.

The state had 279 data centers as of September, According to the Texas Observer. Dallas Fort Worth has about 141 of these.

This translates into 591 megawatts of energy rented by database in Dallas and Fort Worth last year – the second most in the country – and about 190 MW in Austin and San Antonio, according to CBRE report.

The Texas Electrical Council, the state’s primary network operator, estimates that 1 megawatts of electricity can work approximately 200 homes.

What does more network centers mean for the network?

In Texas, US Energy Information Management This request predicted Among the adult users – including but not limited to data centers – will grow by 60 % this year, and make up about 10 % of the total expected demand on the main network of the state.

Adult users needed 5496 MW of energy Approved by Ercot To connect to the network, according to the September report. You expect the environmental impact evaluation that by the end of this year, Ercot will have agreed to 9,500 megawatts in the total large demand for users-an increase of 73 %.

This includes data centers and other big users such as encryption mining facilities, which represent the largest share of big users looking to connect to the network, according to Ercot.

Many other large download projects-which would use up to 56,458 megawatts per year-are waiting for the study of Ercot as of September.

Some adult users, especially encryption mining facilities, have committed to temporarily reducing energy use in network stress periods – an agreement He got some millions of dollars for coding mining companies While many Texas saw that their power bills were rising.

On the other hand, data centers generally require unexpected energy supplies and usually do not participate in high -order response programs at ERCOT, according to a recent. a report From the Senate Business and Trade Committee in Texas.

On the national level, databases are expected to consume between 11 % and 12 % of the total energy demand in the United States by 2030 – an increase of about 3 % and 4 % of the demand today, according to McKinsey analysis.

Is the network ready?

How to meet the high demand for power is scheduled to lead the discussion about the network during the legislative session for this year.

Texas lawmakers have sought to strengthen state supplies of natural gas through the Texas Energy Fund, which will provide companies up to 10 billion dollars of low interest loans to build gas generation plants fed by gas. Government organizers currently examine loan requests, but new factories will not be operated for years.

“Data centers will provide a very essential product for consumers that support our lives jobs,” said Mark Bell, head of the Texas Electric Companies Association. “As an industry, we are ready to escalate the challenges we face with this type of great pregnancy.”

Bell added that the expected demand “provides future signals in the market” that encourage companies to invest in new energy generation.

The demand expectations for Ercot, which reflected a sharp increase since previous years, have also raised questions between legislators about whether big users need more censorship in the country.

“I think we need to upgrade the challenge of obtaining the required generation on the network,” Senat. Charles ChounernerChairman of the Business and Trade Committee, told Texas Tribune in June. “But there is ultimately a priority that can be discussed, and it is clear that Texas – their families, their homes, their business – are the most important individuals, and the most important customers for electricity.”

On social media, Lieutenant is a ruler Dan Patrick He said in June that the Legislative Council needs to “take a closer look” at data centers and encryption mining facilities. “We want data centers, but the Western West cannot be the Western West for Data Centers and Exploration Miners who collide with our network and close the lights,” books.

Patrick said in a statement on Thursday to Texas Tribune that he supported Stargate and believes that Texas should be “the global leading company in AI and the data and encryption center. The key is to make sure they have the power they need without a significant impact on our electrical network. Industries understand that They work on solutions. “

Some companies Building a generation locally or on the site To help reduce its effect on the network and lock their power supplies. Building their facilities near current generation sites can also help reduce network congestion. Located legislators may consider whether companies should be forced to do so, with the Senate Business and Trade Committee in Texas Recommendation Large loads are required to “compensate for their effect on the network by adding energy systems on the site or participating in programs to reduce the use of electricity during peak demand periods.”

If the ruling on whether data centers and other large projects have already been adopted in Texas after requesting to look at ERCOT, experts are still difficult, experts have witnessed legitimates last public, making Ercot’s prediction less certain. Companies that are looking to create requests for ordinary data centers may provide a potential multiple sites.

In order to help these expectations, the Senate Business and Trade Committee in Texas Recommend The state guarantees that organizers have enough information about how big users work, such as asking companies to provide more detailed information about their proposed projects.

Public Utilities Committee Agree on the base In November, the ERCOT code for registration of energy use with the organizers requires.

The expected growth in use also means that the network will need it More transportation linesThe CEO of Ercot Pablo Vigas said in April.

“It can exceed the expected pace for the growth growth that can build a transportation capacity to support it.” He said the Vigas show. “It is necessary to have a new era of planning the transportation system to manage the large amount of potential pregnancy.”

Usually, the costs of building the transmission and distribution infrastructure are spread through the agents of the tool. However, the main investments needed to support the demand that the big industrial users raised the issue of who should measure the bill.

Their lawmakers A sign interest In reducing the costs that are transferred to young energy consumers “by ensuring that industries with large electricity requirements have a good part of their actual costs.”

Dioro, from the Data Center Alliance, confirmed that the industry is “completely committed to paying the cost of full service.”

“We do not want residential customers who support data centers,” he said. “We have a strong stake in Texas helping to build appropriately, and we tend to do this.”