Paul CampbellSeems like the pertinent information is slowly coming out on this stuff.
I don't really understand how something that more than doubles the country's power requirements isn't a really big news story. Add that to the list I guess.
Dan Stowell@paulgc Though I didn't read the ofgem report, a few things to notice: it doesn't say "more than double" but "double". And where did that idea come from? I guess from the idea that the requested capacity is more than the current peak usage. But capacity is not usage. Data centres will certainly shift a big chunk of their load to offpeak, because the cost incentive is there. So it'll increase peak, but not double it. Hopefully an actual expert will give us a proper estimate...
@paulgc Having said all that: it's more important to hit our climate goals than to feed this trend for pushing LLMs into everything!
@danstowell The article says
"Ofgem said about 140 proposed datacentre schemes, driven by use of artificial intelligence, could require 50 gigawatts of electricity – 5GW more than the country’s current peak demand."
That sounds a lot like ~10% more than current peak demands?
I do feel quite a bit of despair at all this.
@danstowell Environmental impacts aside, (honestly feels like a lost cause at this point) this is basically a new customer buying an awful lot or power. I'm struggling to see how this won't increase the cost of electricity for everyone.
If everyone's life is to be made more difficult for this thing to exist, I'd like to at least have the benefits explained.
You are right though - I don't really understand the detail or implications of all of this. Hopefully it will become clearer.
@paulgc That sentence, to me, is unclear - comparing total capacity against peak demand is probably a bit apples-to-oranges. I'm sure "some organisations" would like to double the actual power draw, but it's implausible: the grid can't take it, not all of those datacentres will be approved, the cost would be uneconomic, peak use != capacity... so yes it's an increase, but how much? "More than zero, less than double" is all I can say!
@danstowell This does make me feel a little better about the whole thing. thanks!