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Comment by londons_explore | Hacker News Reader

There are big benefits to having power generation grid connected.

It is more reliable (due to many possible generation sources). It is more eco-friendly (solar in daytime, wind when the wind blows). It is more cost efficient (no need to overbuild for peak usage, generators don't sit idle when computers are off for maintenance).

Yet our electricity grid has such a mass of regulations attached that people are choosing to lose these benefits - and with it we lose the benefit of them connecting to our grid.

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That's partly a result of having 50 states writing laws for themselves instead having all statues living under federal laws for everything. The line between what is acceptable to be regulated by federal laws and what is not is something I, not being a lawyer, have never studied. Power and water type utilities does feel like it might be something that could benefit from same rules/regulations every where, but basing regulations on feelings is probably not the best bit of logic

For the most part power grids are federally regulated. The exception is Texas because they are self-contained and don't cross state lines

States rights is not why there are issues with the power grid

EDIT: I should add, states DO also regulate electric utilities but generally that is around local issues like charging rates to customers. the bulk electric system (transmission and generation) is largely the domain of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

Exactly. Think how much more efficient our government could be if we had one centrally planned government instead of 50 sovereign states. Sometimes I wish I could move to the USSR.

> It is more cost efficient

Depends. Getting a grid connection, and all the equipment to connect and step down with negotiating prices is not always fun. Especially as there is a limited amount of power on the grid. its not a free lunch and takes time.

Its far easier to just slap shitty local generators on and live off the crappy noisy electricity they provide.

It's ironic when data center operators, who I'd expect to be experts on calculating complex cost/benefit scenarios, check for & arrange what's needed, sidestep better solutions because there's a bunch of requirements attached.

Reads to me as going for a quick & dirty fix.

From what I've read, it's mostly about time.

Attaching to the grid, at the powers desired, in the locations desired involves years of waiting beyond construction. Onsite genetation can be built within the overall construction timeline.

Maybe poor site selection, but I'm sure there's a cost optimization there. And my understanding is that there's not a whole lot of excess grid capacity around the country at the moment. Utilities are spending a lot of resources on changing the mix of generation and wildfire mitigation and don't have a lot of resources for adding generation capacity beyond what is immediately needed or increasing interconnection capacity.

This is different than the data center boom in the .com era; site selection was different, the grid situation was different, and the data centers being built were smaller loads.

I'm not an expert in the US grid, but where I am, the grid moves at a different pace.

It also has a bunch of constraints that are not that appealing. For example there is a strict supply limit. You can't just attach 4x6MW connections in a few weeks. More over, that kind of cable is £900 a meter, at the least. Its also oil filled and needs a bunch of other infra to keep it cold.

Then, the lead time for transformers is also quite high. I'm not sure about the switch gear and meters though.

Once you have all that, you need to make sure your local spur of the grid has enough capacity to provide what you need.

Then you can bid for a connection. THe further away you are from the grid the more it costs.

Those regulations are there for a reason though. I’ll never understand this logic. We have regulations so things are clean and safe. Yes, it would be easier to not have those regulations and just have dirty and unsafe electricity. But that’s the cost of having a business and also having a clean and safe society. Corporations love to externalize costs and that’s what’s happening here again.

Becoming and staying a leader in innovation sometimes requires shortcuts. You can also frame a law to make that exception specific for an industry, a field or a group so it doesn't become the norm (or time box it, if you want). You need innovation, there is no other way USA can lead in AI if you don't build these damn data centers.

Come to live in Europe and you will see how nice it is to stagnate because rule A depends on rule B, but there is an exception C that requires D....

Death by a thousand cuts.

It is in fact very nice to live in Europe and stagnate. Can recommend.

The exemption for non-public generators is there for a reason too.

There are lots of businesses and homes with onsite generation for various reasons, and most of them run for less than 100 hours per year. Not a lot of reason to add a reporting requirement and a strong emissions requirement.

Focusing on large scale generation was a good choice (that has worked for decades).

In an ideal world, congress would see this and adapt the rules to apply here as well. Probably an hour limit or a capacity limit or some combination would be a better discriminator than for public use.

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