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Comment by nemomarx | Hacker News Reader

I do wonder if you'll see local community NIMBYs about it though. Electricity prices near data centers go up, right?

> Electricity prices near data centers go up, right?

I hear this a lot, but the most comprehensive study I've seen found the opposite -- that retail electricity prices tend to decrease as load (from datacenters and other consumers) increases [1].

The places where electricity prices have increased the most since 2019 (California, Hawaii, and the Northeast) are not places where they're building a lot of new datacenters.

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S104061902...

No, they go down, obviously if you think about it. Having a huge volume consumer nearby amortizes away the fixed costs of the grid, which are massive.

https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S10406190250006...

Except,

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-ai-data-centers-elec...

> Wholesale electricity costs as much as 267% more than it did five years ago in areas near data centers. That’s being passed on to customers.

Yeah I don't have the inclination to repeat myself but it's a bad article based on bad data and flawed reasoning.

Bloomberg also ran this article, by the same author, that says AI data centers are interfering with your applicances, which is also pure bullshit.

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-ai-power-home-applia...

What fixed costs of the grid? In Northern Virginia, we’re constantly adding substations and transmission lines because the grid isn’t a fixed cost when you’re building data centers constantly; it quickly becomes a variable cost.

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