US Calls on Data Centers to Prepare Backup Power Ahead of Storm
(Bloomberg) -- The US government asked the nation’s grid operators to make backup power available from facilities including data centers as a record-breaking winter storm threatens blackouts across the country.
There’s 35 gigawatts of unused capacity across the country and the government is “taking action to ensure that if the nation needs it, the generation will be made available,” Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said in a statement on Thursday. One gigawatt is equivalent to a traditional nuclear reactor.
Some data centers and factories rely on dedicated power facilities, but those plants generally do not provide electricity back to the grid. The unusual move is the latest in a series of broader measures by the US to ensure adequate energy supplies, including vowing to keep all coal plants running.
More than 175 million people will face snow, rain, sleet and ice through the weekend as record-breaking cold across the central and eastern regions fuels the season’s largest winter storm. It’s expected to be one of the toughest tests for the electric grid in Texas since a deadly 2021 collapse, and Governor Greg Abbott has issued disaster declarations for more than half the counties.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the state’s main grid operator, expects to have sufficient power supply of around 93 gigawatts to weather the storm. Demand hit an all-time winter high of 80.2 gigawatts last year.
The worst is expected to sweep the US South, from eastern Texas and Louisiana to Arkansas and North Carolina, Georgia and Virginia, where as much of an inch of ice will encrust trees and power lines, leading to widespread outages.
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