No. of Recommendations: 2
a good 30 minute podcast on how data centers impacted electric bills in Ohio.
Ratepayers ( residential customers ) subsidize the cost of infrastructure
for these data centers. The podcast investigates how the giant, big-money
backers and owners of these DC's are getting subsidized by all of the ratepayers
in the region. It sounds like Ohio is starting to wise up, and demand that the DC's
pony up more money for the cost of buildout, but ratepayers will always end
up with higher bills, as the cost is spread out to everybody, unlike any of
the profits ( assuming there will be any ).
Just my opinion, but it will be interesting to see how electric power is
prioritized during either summer heat waves, or winter cold snaps in areas that have
a concentration of DC's, like the Ohio area featured in the podcast. My bet would
be that the DC's get treated more favorably than the citizens in the area.
This could be a tailwind for residential solar, which could help residents insulate
themselves from rolling black outs and peak power pricing, but they'd probably
need to not have their local solar grid connected. Google search says the overwhelming
majority are grid-connected, though.
I'm glad that a locally proposed DC was shot down in my area. It took the citizens
of that county Raising Cain to get it shut down. The local political "representatives"
were pushing hard to rush the project thru.
https://www.npr.org/2025/12/19/nx-s1-5649814/ai-da... 