Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Podcast

So, What Does AI Really Mean for Decarbonization?

Jesse hosts a panel discussion at the annual meeting of Princeton’s Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment.

A data center.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The rise of artificial intelligence and the associated expansion of data centers is driving surging demand for new power supply. Earlier this fall at the annual meeting of Princeton University’s Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, Jesse sat down with a panel of experts to discuss how society can meet the growing energy demands of AI while staying on track broader decarbonization efforts.

How will we power the growing demand from AI and data centers? What role can nuclear power really play? Will AI lock us into a new generation of gas power plants? Are regulators prepared for what's coming? Jesse dives into all this and more with Allison Clements, former commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Matt DeNichilo, partner at energy investment firm ECP, and Lucia Tian, head of clean energy and decarbonization technologies at Google.

Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap, and Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University. Rob is off this week.

Subscribe to “Shift Key” and find this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can also add the show’s RSS feed to your podcast app to follow us directly.

Here is an excerpt from the conversation:

Allison Clements: FERC, the agency, which, I was one of five commissioners, has jurisdiction over what resources sign up for and retire from participating on the grid. And over the last decade, two decades, what has happened is, as this 1.5 terawatts of generation have gotten in line, it’s just overwhelmed the interconnection system. The interconnection processes weren’t designed for anything other than central station, dispatchable, most recently gas plants, combined cycle gas plants, peaking plants, closer to load, you don’t need as much network upgrades.

There’s lots of room on the grid because there was an investment in the grid many decades ago. But now we’ve got this situation where there’s all these resources who want to sign up, and they can’t get on. In fact, this has been going on for a long time. And most of the supply resources waiting to get on today do have site control, do have the financial and commercial readiness. There’s some that we’re still clearing out from the days of the Wild West, where people would just sign up six interconnection applications and see what happened, which would cause a lot of problems for everybody else when they would drop out of those lines.

So, what do we do about it? FERC has passed a couple of different rules to clean up regional transmission planning. A comment about planning during this morning’s session that utilities plan so much — well, if we had been planning for an increasingly electrified economy 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, we would have a lot more transmission, a lot more space on the grid to give access to these resources.

We have taken action as an agency to try and fix that through one rule. We’ve also taken action as an agency to try and fix the interconnection lines themselves through some nuts and bolts requirements to make it harder to get through, so you don’t come until you’re ready to go. But those rules and policy changes that are very positive aren’t going to have impact for, let’s say, five years, seven years. I mean, the reality is we’re not going to be picking new transmission lines from these processes we’ve developed until at least 2029.

2024 — what do we do for the next five years, right? Even these really exciting new deals with SMR, advanced geothermal, we’re looking in the 2030 timeline. Well, the existing grid is really inefficient, and if we can use AI to improve it, that would be really, really important in validating and making this a positive cycle of affirmation.

The last thing I’ll say is, what are those inefficiencies? The lines between regions, the lines between PJM, which is the region we’re sitting in today, a grid operator, and the New York State grid operator, and the New England grid operator at the interties, the transfers, are very inefficient and they’re often counter to good economics. We have no hardware and software solutions, grid-enhancing technologies, advanced transmission technologies that can automatically double existing capacity, or existing room, extra room on the grid. We have surplus interconnection. We have the opportunity to put more resources behind existing points of interconnection and use that system more efficiently. So, the reality is to solve the power for AI, we need the AI to come back and help us do it.

This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …

Watershed’s climate data engine helps companies measure and reduce their emissions, turning the data they already have into an audit-ready carbon footprint backed by the latest climate science. Get the sustainability data you need in weeks, not months. Learn more at watershed.com.

As a global leader in PV and ESS solutions, Sungrow invests heavily in research and development, constantly pushing the boundaries of solar and battery inverter technology. Discover why Sungrow is the essential component of the clean energy transition by visiting sungrowpower.com.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

Yellow

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Politics

How a House GOP Proposal Would Essentially Gut the IRA’s Biggest Tax Credits

It’s not early phase-out. These 3 changes could overhaul the law’s clean electricity supports.

An elephant and clean energy.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

On Monday, the Republican-led House Ways and Means Committee released the first draft of its rewrite of America’s clean energy tax credits.

The proposal might look, at first, like a cautious paring back of the tax credits. But the proposal amounts to a backdoor repeal of the policies, according to energy system and tax analysts.

Keep reading...Show less
Electric Vehicles

Congress Could Break Tesla’s Revenue Model

Between the budget reconciliation process and an impending vote to end California’s electric vehicle standards, a lot of the EV maker’s revenue stands to go poof.

Elon Musk and the Capitol.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

It’s shaping up to be a very bad week for Tesla. The House Committee on Energy and Commerce’s draft budget proposal released Sunday night axes two of the primary avenues by which the electric vehicle giant earns regulatory credits. Congress also appears poised to vote to revoke California’s authority to implement its Zero-Emission Vehicle program by the end of the month, another key source of credits for the automaker. The sale of all regulatory credits combined earned the company a total of $595 million in the first quarter on a net income of just $409 million — that is, they represented its entire margin of profitability. On the whole, credits represented 38% of Tesla’s net income last year.

To add insult to injury, the House Ways and Means committee on Monday proposed eliminating the Inflation Reduction Act’s $7,500 consumer EV tax credit, the used EVs tax credit, and the commercial EVs tax credit by year’s end. The move comes as part of the House’s larger budget-making process. And while it will likely be months before a new budget is finalized, with Trump seeking to extend his 2017 tax cuts and Congress limited in its spending ability, much of the IRA is on the chopping block. That is bad news for clean energy companies across the spectrum, from clean hydrogen producers to wind energy companies and battery manufacturers. But as recently as a few months ago, Tesla CEO Elon Musk was sounding cavalier.

Keep reading...Show less
Climate

AM Briefing: Biggest Blows Yet to the IRA

On gutting energy grants, the Inflation Reduction Act’s last legs, and dishwashers

GOP Budgets Propose Biggest Blows Yet to the IRA
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: Eighty of Minnesota’s 87 counties had red flag warnings on Monday, with conditions expected to remain dry and hot through Tuesday15 states in the South and Midwest will experience “extreme” humidity this weekIt will be 99 degrees Fahrenheit today in Emerson, Manitoba. The municipality hit 100 last weekend — the earliest in the year Canada has ever recorded triple digits.

THE TOP FIVE

1. The Energy and Commerce Committee’s budget would kill clean energy grants ...

Republicans on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce released their draft budget proposal on Sunday night, and my colleague Matthew Zeitlin dove into its widespread cuts to the Inflation Reduction Act and other clean energy and environment programs. Among the rescissions — clawbacks of unspent money in existing programs — and other proposals, Matthew highlights:

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow