AI Boom Leads to Record US Grid Costs, Call for New Plants
A power substation near a data center in Ashburn, Virginia.
Photographer: Nathan Howard/BloombergBusinesses and households served by the largest US power grid will spend a record $16.1 billion to ensure electricity supplies amid a massive artificial intelligence-driven demand surge.
The payments to generators and other suppliers were set Tuesday at a power auction run by PJM Interconnection LLC, which operates the grid stretching from the Midwest to the mid-Atlantic. It raised the daily capacity price to $329.17 per megawatt from $269.92. Shares of several power companies jumped on the news.