Chase Dowling
@cpatdowling
electron merchant @basepowerco | Energy + AI Previously @Tesla, @PNNLab
"If Texas can prove you can deploy decentralized batteries and flatten peaks, then every state should do this" ERCOT is the bellwether of power systems.
americans want power that’s reliable, cheap, and clean — in that order. achieving that while keeping up with soaring load growth is a defining US challenge. @davidu, @espricewright and I discuss the past, present, and future of the electric grid ⚡️ open.spotify.com/episode/1sebTn…
"This observation seems controversial but it's self evidently true." Not if you repeat yourself enough times. My tin-foil hat theory is that no interconnection means no reasonable attributability of REC's and off-site renewable PPA's for corporate ESG goals. Hence xAI being very…
This is not sustainable. I predict instead DCs will build their own cheaper, more reliable power plants, utilities will then purchase access to them on terms favorable to the DC operators. Why? The net present economic value of the marginal MWh is far far higher for AI…
All bent out of shape about RTC+B? More like SLURM+B amirite?
Fascinating high resolution load data for an AI training data center (50 MW block) Periodic idling & surges - 6MW to 30MW spike in 290ms(!) - fluctuating demand followed by drop then spikes again Why does AI training load vary so much? - GPUs process data in batches, so power…
Actually kind of jealous of whoever gets to hook up SLURM to SCADA. So cursed but so scrappy.
Hyperscalers are buying powerplants to avoid delay, not because their VOLL happens to be like $1MM/MWh. If it was about VOLL they wouldn't let interns hammer the job queue with unsafe bash scripts in the first place.
The Pacific DC Intertie is chill but we gotta work on the aesthetic
The Pacific DC Intertie is chill but we gotta work on the aesthetic
Excellent run-down of behind-the-meter generation serving AI data centers, via NGI: Data Centers Going Off-Grid With Natural Gas to ‘Find Any Way to Get Power’ "Behind-the-meter power generation was getting scant attention before billionaire Elon Musk installed natural gas…
Just so we're all clear, that's a ballpark 95% capacity factor. That's a load functionally equivalent to the capacity factor of a nuclear power plant.
Correct. Typical use can vary throughout the day or run. Power fluctuations based on when they are idle vs. running can be humongous.
Hitting extra hard today.
The politics of the grid, the economics of the grid, and the engineering of the grid, are three circles with very very very little overlap.
If you don't survey your future empire at 3 y/o you're ngmi
Do you build the generation? No. Do you operate the generation? Barely. Do you do the maintenance on T&D? We sub that out. What are you being paid for? The confidence I have in my monopoly, and my ability to express my legal right to revenue has proven helpful for investors.