Data centers in Texas could lead to blackouts in the middle of winter, the group warns
The data center industry is on the rise, as cloud providers seek to scale their services to keep pace with AI-driven computing. In Texas, the boom is intensifying. Besides Virginia, no other place in the US has a higher concentration of server farms than the Lone Star State (it has more than 400 data centers, currently). Now, a new report says that all of these data centers may be at risk of winter blackouts that, under the right conditions, could prove life-threatening.
NBC News first reported on a new report released this week by the North American Electric Corporation (NECC), a Georgia-based non-profit that monitors risks to the US electric grid. In its annual report, NECC discussed how the growth of the data center sector is putting more pressure on the grid.
Nerc’s report notes that “strong load growth from new data centers and other large industrial users is driving higher winter electricity forecasters to predict and contributing to the continued risk of supply shortages.” The demand for electricity is obviously higher during the coldest times of the year, as an estimated 42 percent of Americans rely on electricity for heating to crank up the rays when the temperatures outside drop. However, the increased reliance on electricity comfortably pulls the grid’s potential to exceed load capacity and output. Data centers are putting more pressure on existing systems, reporting notes, documenting:
During the coming winter season, Exas Re-Erdot is expected to continue to face the risks of shortages during Peard Load Hour and peak load hours, especially under heavy load conditions associated with freezing temperatures. The forced exit of hot resources and reduced output from utilities in these conditions increases the risk of financial shortages.
In addition to the hundreds of data centers that already exist in Texas, the State also has projects in development – although skeptics say that it will not be possible for all of those projects to actually be built. NBC reports that there has been a significant increase in projects requesting connection to the Texas grid in the past year:
If all of those projects are actually built, they would be equivalent to the average annual energy use of nearly 154 million homes in Texas, according to a CNBC analysis based on 2024 electricity data. But the status of the star alone has about 30 million people. Beth Garza, who was the head of Erdot’s wardot, said that she was very skeptical of these projects and all of them will be built, describing the number estimate as “a lot of madness.” More than half of the projects did not submit planning studies, according to ENTOT.
As the AI Revolution continues, unintended side effects will continue to emerge. I think that disruption to the power grid is just more of a price that we all have to pay for humanity to have chatbots that can rap.
