A recent report from Bloomberg raises concerns about the growing number of data centers that are being built to support artificial intelligence (AI) and how this could negatively impact the power grid in the United States.
To understand this, let’s break it down. Whisker Labs, a company that monitors energy use in homes, tracked data from one million residential sensors. They found that over half of the homes experiencing the worst power issues—specifically, problems with the quality of the electricity they receive—are located within 20 miles of major data centers.
This suggests that there might be a connection between living near a data center and experiencing what are called “bad harmonics.” This term refers to problems in the way electricity flows into homes, which can lead to unreliable power supply.
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According to Bloomberg, this distorted electricity can cause serious problems. It could damage household appliances, make homes more susceptible to electrical fires, and potentially lead to larger issues like brownouts (temporary reductions in power supply) or blackouts (complete power loss). The situation could become even worse with AI data centers, which have unpredictable energy needs that can change rapidly.
Aman Joshi, who is the chief commercial officer at Bloom Energy, explained that the power grid is not designed to handle such sudden and large fluctuations in energy demand, especially if multiple data centers are drawing power at the same time.
However, it’s worth noting that a representative from Commonwealth Edison, a utility company in Chicago, expressed skepticism about the findings from Whisker Labs, questioning the accuracy of their claims and the assumptions behind them.
