Is AI on your power bill?
AI data centers need huge amounts of electricity. A Senate report, a bipartisan bill and the companies disagree about who pays for the grid upgrades.
AI data centers need huge amounts of electricity. A Senate report, a bipartisan bill and the companies disagree about who pays for the grid upgrades.
· AI voice, from NPR, TIME, Daily Caller
Archive photos: public domain, via Wikimedia Commons; paper robot drawn by AI Broadsheet; Music: “Full Chill Lofi Beat.wav” (CC0, Freesound); Sound effects: Freesound (CC0)
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Your electricity bill might be helping pay for AI. One 100-megawatt data center can use as much power as about 100,000 homes. Permanent jobs? About 100, says a report from Senate Democrats.
Grid upgrades are often split among everyone with a meter. A Harvard expert told NPR: everyone pays. In Louisiana, estimates say one Meta project could add 8 to 13 dollars a month to the average Entergy bill. Meta disputes that.
The report says none of seven big companies agreed to pay for upgrades built only for them. The companies say they pay their direct costs. Now a bipartisan Senate bill would make new data centers pay the extra grid costs they add. So, who should pay?
Tell us below.
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