Tag: infrastructure

Texas Is Preparing To Cut Off Power To Data Centers During Grid Emergencies

Over the Fourth of July, deadly floods swept across central Texas, disrupting infrastructure and causing widespread outages. Meanwhile, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) has already seen multiple price spikes and conservation alerts — not because there wasn’t enough power, but because we couldn’t move it where it was needed.

These aren’t isolated events. It’s not just a Texas problem.

Just days after the shutoff planning was announced, the U.S. Department of Energy warned that blackout risks across the country could rise 100-fold by 2030.

All of this points to a deeper vulnerability: We’re still running the grid with tools and assumptions built for a different era — one with fewer storms, slower load growth and no massive data centers. 

Texas’s new normal demands smarter, faster and more adaptive grid operations. Long-term infrastructure investments are critical, but they won’t arrive in time to manage the next three summers.

Texas has made real progress in building new generation capacity, especially in solar, storage and wind. But the wires that carry that power haven’t changed. More importantly, the way we operate the grid hasn’t evolved to match the demands of either changing weather patterns or electrical load growth.

Now, surging demand from industrial expansion, electrification and AI data centers is doubling the strain. ERCOT’s own projections show that power demand in Texas may nearly double by 2030. And, other regions aren’t immune.

  • The Midcontinent Independent System Operator recently green-lit a $22 billion transmission buildout to relieve rising congestion.
  • The California Independent System Operator saw renewable curtailments surge nearly 30% last year.
  • The PJM Interconnection anticipates 3% to 4% annual peak load growth through 2035 driven by data centers and expects up to 70 GW of demand over the next 15 years.
  • Nationally, U.S. demand is projected to climb about 16% in five years — a pace not seen since the 1980s. 

That means more stress on an already-congested transmission system — one still being managed with decades-old assumptions about heat, wind and demand.

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Maryland’s energy price explosion

In July, my electric bill crossed a number I never thought I’d see: over $500. Yes, it was a brutally hot month, but we’ve had very hot summers before in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. We’ve run the air conditioning nonstop before and never reached even $400.

What’s going on?

A few things. Let’s start with this week’s announcement by Maryland Gov. Wes Moore of a $2 million “Residential and Commercial Energy Storage Program.” The idea is to offer rebates to homeowners and businesses that install battery systems, which can store energy and reduce strain on the grid. Moore says, “When we invest in clean energy, we help expand supply.”

That all sounds nice. But here’s the problem: Every “investment” like this costs money, our money, and it hasn’t lowered a single bill so far. In fact, it’s done the opposite. Almost laughable is another planned “solution” to the energy crisis: Maryland utility customers will receive a rebate on their bills next month, estimated at about $40 per household, depending on electricity usage. A second rebate is planned for January. 

On June 1, utility rates across Maryland jumped. Baltimore Gas & Electric, Pepco, Delmarva Power — pick your provider, the story’s the same. We were told it’s because of supply problems and the need for infrastructure upgrades. The reality? The state continues to remove reliable, always-on energy sources and replace them with more expensive alternatives that can’t carry the load on their own. We’re importing more energy from other states at higher rates and paying for that gap via higher bills.

The jump we saw in our bills this summer isn’t a one-time bump. Maryland is part of a regional power grid called PJM. Recently, the price PJM charges to ensure there’s enough power cleared at the maximum allowed rate. Translation: In 2026, we’ll see another increase, 1.5% to 5% higher on top of what we’re already paying now. And that’s just the short term. With the growing demand from massive data centers sucking up power, Reuters reports bills in our region could climb 30% to 60% by 2030.

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WoodMac Sounds Alarm On Transformer Shortage Amid AI Data Center Boom

The AI data center boom could soon face some serious headwinds, and the problem isn’t a shortage of Nvidia GPUs, but America’s fragile power grid.

A combination of disastrous green policies and soaring data center power demand has already sparked a power bill crisis across the Mid-Atlantic states, while a nationwide grid-tightening crisis unfolds. This has triggered a growing wave of discontent among residents in Maryland and New Jersey, who are angered by Democrats’ prioritization of green policies that have retired stable fossil fuel power generation in favor of unreliable solar and wind, resulting in power bill inflation like never seen before.

Making matters worse, AI data centers are counting on an upgraded grid to handle new base loads of power. This massive, multi-layered supply chain needed to upgrade the grid spans raw materials, transmission lines, circuit breakers, cables, control systems, and power generation systems.

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U.S. AI boom is completely upending the electricity market — small businesses and households could foot the bill as industry watchers warn of sharp price increases

A new report into the seismic demands of AI data centers on the power grid claims that electricity rates for individuals and small businesses could increase vastly in the face of data center expansion from the likes of Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. The New York Times reports that AI data centers could see their demand on the country’s electricity could increase to as much as 12% by 2028, up from just 4% a couple of years ago. Furthermore, high-tech giants are building their own power plants, becoming consumers and producers of electricity in a way that is fundamentally reshaping the U.S. electricity market. According to the report, small businesses and households could see their bills go up disproportionately as a result.

AI data centers need more power and power grid investments

According to the report, in 2023, data centers run by such companies as Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft accounted for 4% of the nation’s electricity use, and federal projections indicate that share could climb to 12% by 2028. Since AI processing is far more energy-intensive than streaming or standard cloud workloads, Amazon’s chief executive, Andy Jassy, has openly said that power availability is the main bottleneck limiting new data center capacity.

Significant power demand not only creates unprecedented strain on the grid but is even forcing high-tech giants to generate their own power. For now, they use various renewable energy sources, gas turbines, or diesel generators, but going forward, some even plan to run their own nuclear power plants. Already, some sell surplus energy on the wholesale market. Over the past decade, these sales have totaled $2.7 billion, with most revenue generated since 2022. In some regions, their operations match or surpass the scale of established utilities, allowing them to influence both supply and pricing.

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Power-Bill Crisis Spreads From Maryland To New Jersey, May Doom Democrats As ‘Green’ Implodes

A power bill crisis is gripping parts of the U.S. Mid-Atlantic and is set to worsen, threatening to financially crush households as long-range forecasts point to a brutally cold winter. What began in Baltimore, Maryland – as first covered in our reporting one year ago– has now spread to New Jersey, where residents are furious over skyrocketing electricity costs. 

The common denominator in both states? A disastrous green energy agenda, pushed by radical leftist lawmakers, is dismantling reliable and cheap fossil fuel power generation in favor of unstable solar and wind. This has unleashed a power bill armageddon on working-class and middle-class households, as well as mom-and-pop businesses, all while baseload power demand surges in the era of AI data centers.

Fox News is beginning to latch onto the power bill crisis theme, starting with coverage of New Jersey residents who are absolutely furious over exploding power bills. This new development could severely damage the state’s Democratic leaders in the upcoming elections.

This all started when New Jersey’s Board of Public Utilities approved a 17 to 20% rate hike for power bills in June. Many residents were shocked when they opened their bills at the end of last month. 

“$200 more, I know my electrical bill,” one Jersey woman told Fox News reporter CB Cotton, adding, “I was shocked. So to say the least, I’m very disappointed. This is killing us, and every time you turn around it’s something more. You only get little pleasures in life that you enjoy, and my air conditioner is one of them.”

Perhaps Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy’s decision to shutter the state’s nuclear and coal plants, without a one-to-one replacement for lost capacity on the grid, was a catastrophic error that is only now coming home to roost. He also prioritized offshore wind farms and other green energy projects, which have left the grid more fragile than ever.

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As electric bills rise, evidence mounts that data centers share blame. States feel pressure to act

Amid rising electric bills, states are under pressure to insulate regular household and business ratepayers from the costs of feeding Big Tech’s energy-hungry data centers.

It’s not clear that any state has a solution and the actual effect of data centers on electricity bills is difficult to pin down. Some critics question whether states have the spine to take a hard line against tech behemoths like Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Meta.

But more than a dozen states have begun taking steps as data centers drive a rapid build-out of power plants and transmission lines.

That has meant pressuring the nation’s biggest power grid operator to clamp down on price increases, studying the effect of data centers on electricity bills or pushing data center owners to pay a larger share of local transmission costs.

Rising power bills are “something legislators have been hearing a lot about. It’s something we’ve been hearing a lot about. More people are speaking out at the public utility commission in the past year than I’ve ever seen before,” said Charlotte Shuff of the Oregon Citizens’ Utility Board, a consumer advocacy group. “There’s a massive outcry.”

Some data centers could require more electricity than cities the size of Pittsburgh, Cleveland or New Orleans, and make huge factories look tiny by comparison. That’s pushing policymakers to rethink a system that, historically, has spread transmission costs among classes of consumers that are proportional to electricity use.

“A lot of this infrastructure, billions of dollars of it, is being built just for a few customers and a few facilities and these happen to be the wealthiest companies in the world,” said Ari Peskoe, who directs the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard University. “I think some of the fundamental assumptions behind all this just kind of breaks down.”

A fix, Peskoe said, is a “can of worms” that pits ratepayer classes against one another.

Some officials downplay the role of data centers in pushing up electric bills.

Tricia Pridemore, who sits on Georgia’s Public Service Commission and is president of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, pointed to an already tightened electricity supply and increasing costs for power lines, utility poles, transformers and generators as utilities replace aging equipment or harden it against extreme weather.

The data centers needed to accommodate the artificial intelligence boom are still in the regulatory planning stages, Pridemore said, and the Data Center Coalition, which represents Big Tech firms and data center developers, has said its members are committed to paying their fair share.

But growing evidence suggests that the electricity bills of some Americans are rising to subsidize the massive energy needs of Big Tech as the U.S. competes in a race against China for artificial intelligence superiority.

Data and analytics firm Wood Mackenzie published a report in recent weeks that suggested 20 proposed or effective specialized rates for data centers in 16 states it studied aren’t nearly enough to cover the cost of a new natural gas power plant.

In other words, unless utilities negotiate higher specialized rates, other ratepayer classes – residential, commercial and industrial – are likely paying for data center power needs.

Meanwhile, Monitoring Analytics, the independent market watchdog for the mid-Atlantic grid, produced research in June showing that 70% – or $9.3 billion – of last year’s increased electricity cost was the result of data center demand.

Last year, five governors led by Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro began pushing back against power prices set by the mid-Atlantic grid operator, PJM Interconnection, after that amount spiked nearly sevenfold. They warned of customers “paying billions more than is necessary.”

PJM has yet to propose ways to guarantee that data centers pay their freight, but Monitoring Analytics is floating the idea that data centers should be required to procure their own power.

In a filing last month, it said that would avoid a “massive wealth transfer” from average people to tech companies.

At least a dozen states are eyeing ways to make data centers pay higher local transmission costs.

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Neo-Nazi gets maximum sentence in terror plot to destroy Maryland’s power grid

Brandon Clint Russell, the leader of a neo-Nazi group, had nothing to say before a judge handed down the maximum 20-year sentence for his role in a white supremacist plot to destroy Maryland’s power grid.

Baltimore District Court Judge James K. Bredar also ordered lifetime supervision for Russell once he is released.

Bredar called the Florida man “the brains” behind the chilling plan to destroy five Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE)substations in and around Baltimore and create a political revolution. 

The judge said Russell wanted to create a “bizarre utopia… where everyone looked like him.”

Earlier this year, a jury found Russell guilty of conspiring to destroy the regional power grid.     

Judge Bredar called Russell “profoundly dangerous” and said he wanted “to engender terror, fear, and chaos.” 

The judge also said Russell has “significant mental health issues.”

“With the guidelines being what they are, yes, we were prepared for this,” said Ian Goldstein, Russell’s lawyer. 

When WJZ Investigator Mike Hellgren asked Goldstein whether his client was dangerous, he replied, “He’s always been very nice to me.”

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North Carolina DMV Hits All DEI Targets, Misses Road Safety Goals

North Carolina’s Division of Motor Vehicles achieved 100 percent of its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) benchmarks in 2024 but failed to meet several core performance goals related to safety, infrastructure, and fiscal responsibility, according to the Department of Transportation’s most recent annual report.

The report from the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) reveals that the state’s Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) reached its DEI target for 2024 while falling short on several other key performance metrics, including road safety, infrastructure maintenance, and fiscal management.

According to the 2024 Annual Performance Report (page 65), the DMV fulfilled its DEI goal entirely. However, it did not achieve full success in four other categories:

  • “Maintain fiscal responsibility”
  • “Make transportation safer”
  • “Improve the reliability and connectivity of the transportation system”
  • “Deliver and maintain our infrastructure efficiently and effectively”

The report comes as former Gov. Roy Cooper (D), who appointed DMV Commissioner Wayne Goodwin in 2022, has launched a campaign for U.S. Senate in the 2026 race.

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Democrats Spark “Manufactured Power Crisis” In Maryland As Left Begins To Panic

Maryland’s deepening energy crisis and the resulting hyperinflation in power bill costs that have steamrolled working-class families are a stark reminder of why local elections matter. It’s also a case study in what happens when one-party rule goes unchecked. Under far-left Democratic leadership, the state has been so epically mismanaged that it now faces multiple cascading crises, whether fiscal, energy-related, or tied to illegal aliens or violent crime. 

Last week marked a significant inflection point for the panicking Maryland Democratic Party, which can no longer ignore the power bill crisis. 

Governor Wes Moore, speaking from a swanky vineyard in northern Baltimore County, was forced to address the crisis and now has blamed skyrocketing power bills on the regional grid operator, PJM.

Moore’s claim that PJM is somehow responsible for Maryland’s power crisis is a masterclass in political deflection.

What’s actually happened is that Moore and the Democratic Party have championed failed globalist “green” policies that led to the premature retirement of reliable fossil fuel power generation across the state for intermittent solar and wind, leaving the grid more fragile than ever. Meanwhile, baseload capacity has stagnated, forcing the state to import a significant portion of its electricity from neighboring states just to keep up with the soaring demand driven by data centers, EVs, and reshoring efforts. 

The power crisis is entirely self-inflicted and a result of failed green policies pushed by far-left state and local officials wearing climate-crisis blinders. These crazed leftists have no business managing the state’s energy infrastructure, let alone its future. 

Local TV station WBFF Fox Baltimore’s Gary Collins spoke with Maryland Del. Ryan Nawrocki, a Republican representing Baltimore County, who called the energy crisis in the state “manufactured” by failed green policies of the Democratic Party. 

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An Overlooked Vulnerability That Could Cripple America’s Power Grid

  • U.S. transformer wait times have ballooned from 50 to 127 weeks, crippling grid resilience in the face of wildfires, storms, or attacks.
  • The Build America, Buy America Act and global demand for transformers have limited supply, with domestic production covering only 20% of needs.
  • Experts warn that the grid remains dangerously unshielded from electromagnetic pulses—natural or man-made—which could lead to catastrophic blackouts.

Electric transformers aren’t something most people think about unless one attached to the power lines serving their home or business is damaged, resulting in a power outage. Most of the time, power comes back on quickly, indicating that the transformers were not the problem. It takes longer to replace a transformer damaged beyond repair.

And that can be a problem if large numbers of transformers are damaged at once such as occurred in the recent California wildfires. That’s because the waiting time for new transformers is now 127 weeks.

In case you don’t know, transformers are typically used to bring down voltage. Utilities use high voltages to transfer electricity long distances because it’s more efficient. The electricity voltage must then be “stepped down” to the level that most homes and businesses use.

It turns out American trade policy is complicating matters for the American grid. The Build America, Buy America provisions of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed under the Biden administration require substantial and, in some cases, 100 percent domestic content for goods and services used in a wide range of federally funded infrastructure projects, including maintenance and expansion of the electrical grid. And, few infrastructure projects move forward without at least some federal contribution. Unfortunately, America only produces about 20 percent of the equipment it needs for its electrical power and transmission system.

Even if the United States were not restricting supply of these goods through Build America, Buy America requirements, there would still be long waiting times. In fairness to those who passed the infrastructure bill, the waiting time for a new transformer back then was 50 weeks—not particularly fast, but far better than today’s wait of over two years for most transformers and now even four years for specialized transformers.

What’s happened is a perfect storm for manufacturers in the form of quickly increasing demand. “Aging grid infrastructure, new renewable-energy generation, expanding electrification, increased EV charging stations, and new data centers all contribute to the rising demand for these machines,” according to the IEEE Spectrum. And that demand is coming from all over the world, including fast-growing Asia, a European Green New Deal, and America’s huge infrastructure spending that includes large sums for expanding green energy and readying the grid for that expansion.

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