More Perfect Union - We Found the Hidden Cost of Data Centers. It's in Your Electric Bill

[hunter]

9. Are you connected to the grid?

If so, your electric bill is an accounting trick that increases electricity costs for everybody else.

If you are truly off the grid, with a big investment in batteries, stand-by generators, and complicated electronics, then you know the actual capital costs and frustrations of solar power. These are pretty much the same at any scale from a tiny house in the wilderness to a regional electric grid.

My neighborhood has so many grid-tied solar installations it's a net exporter of electricity when the sun is shining. Our electric supplier has had to upgrade its distribution infrastructure to accommodate this. When the sun isn't shining most of my solar neighbors, who do not have large battery installations, use electricity from the natural gas powered grid like everyone else.

It's no coincidence that places with aggressive "renewable energy" programs (Denmark, Germany, California, etc.,) have some of the most expensive electricity in the industrialized world.