Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta are teaming up to fight an Ohio utility that wants them to pay for power grid upgrades that will be needed to support the big tech companies’ plans to set up energy-intensive data centers to power artificial intelligence technology.
American Electric Power Ohio, which serves cities like Columbus as well as rural and suburban areas of the Buckeye State, told the state Public Service Commission last month that it needs tech companies to pay up to prevent the utility from passing rising costs on to consumers.
But big tech companies have balked, calling the planned tariff “unfair” and “discriminatory,” according to the documents. obtained by The Washington Post.
In May, AEP Ohio, which often charges customers a monthly payment that represents a percentage of the maximum amount of electricity they expect to use, asked technology companies to commit to a 10-year rate structure that would require them to pay for 90% of projected load.
The companies, which initially agreed to pay 60 percent of the projected amount, would have to shoulder the higher payment even if they do not end up using that much energy, the report said.
The case is scheduled to be heard on October 30.
An AEP Ohio spokesperson told The Washington Post that the utility “is hopeful that a resolution can be reached that will allow for continued economic development in our service territory.”
The Post has requested comment from Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta.
Artificial intelligence has advanced rapidly as evidenced by the popularity of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, as well as competing bots from other tech giants.
But the technology requires vast amounts of electricity from fossil fuels to power the servers and chips that handle intensive AI tasks and store vast amounts of data.
Data centers also require a large number of fans that must run constantly to cool the servers and prevent them from overheating.
Energy production is disrupting tech companies’ stated climate goals.
In central Ohio, where dozens of data centers currently operate, the energy load used by these facilities increased from 100 megawatts in 2020 to 600 megawatts this year, according to AEP Ohio.
The utility expects that number to reach 5,000 megawatts by 2030 amid pending applications from dozens of data centers for permits.
There are nearly 3,000 data centers in the United States, most of them run by shadowy companies that lease them to tech giants.
But AI evangelists such as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates say alternative energy sources are needed to power the new technology.
Gates and Altman are investing in startups seeking to advance fusion, the process of combining lightweight atomic nuclei at extremely high temperatures and pressures to release massive amounts of energy.
Until now, all nuclear energy has come from nuclear fission reactors in which atoms are split, a process that produces both energy and radioactive waste.
Fusion does not produce the radioactive waste of nuclear fission.
With post wires
