Senators demand to know how much energy data centers use

Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren and Republican Senator Josh Hawley are urging the US Central Energy Information Agency to provide better information about how much electricity data centers actually use.

In a joint letter sent to the EIA Thursday morning, and seen by WIRED, Hawley and Warren are pressing the agency to collect “comprehensive annual energy use disclosures” at data centers. This information “is essential for accurate grid planning and will support policy making to prevent large companies from increasing electricity costs for American families,” they wrote.

As the data center boom spread across the country, there were widespread concerns among voters about how their massive power needs might drive up consumers’ electricity bills. This concern Help shape Some midterms are in data center-heavy states, including Virginia and Georgia. Last month, Hawley Co-sponsored A bill introduced by Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal that would require data centers to save their own power supplies in order to protect consumers. Earlier this month, Donald Trump It was held A group of executives from major technology companies are at the White House to sign a non-binding (and toothless) agreement pledging to pay their data center energy costs.

“If we’re concerned about taxpayers paying for data center energy costs, knowing how much energy data centers use is a necessary part of that calculation,” says Ari Pesko, director of the Environmental and Energy Law Program at Harvard Law School. “It’s not the only piece of information you need, but it’s definitely a piece of the puzzle.”

There are a lot of scary headlines about how much power data centers are expected to use over the next few years, but it’s surprisingly difficult to get official numbers from data centers on their current or projected electrical load. No federal government agency specifically collects energy use numbers from data centers. Information about water or electricity usage in an individual data center may be considered proprietary business information, and is often disclosed to the public voluntarily by the company itself. An increasing number of data centers are also moving to installing their power separately from the grid – known as behind-the-meter power – making it more difficult to calculate total energy use.

Utilities are privy to information about energy usage from data centers in their area; They use that information to predict growth. But data centers often turn to different facilities, which, experts say, prompts utilities to double down on projects and forecast “fictitious” growth – data centers that will never be built in their region. CEO of Vistra, an electricity retailer, He said During last year’s first-quarter earnings, the company noted that utilities had inflated electricity demand anywhere from three to five times what was actually needed.

In December, Environmental Impact Assessment Director Tristan Abbey said in a… Round table He expects EIA to be “a key player in providing objective data and analysis to policy makers” regarding data centres. Agency Announce On Wednesday it will conduct a voluntary pilot program to collect energy consumption information from nearly 200 companies that operate data centers in Texas, Washington and Virginia, which will cover “energy sources, electricity consumption, site characteristics, server metrics and cooling systems.”

While the senators applaud the EIA pilot program, their letter includes several questions about how the agency plans to move forward with collecting more data, such as whether or not energy surveys will be mandatory and whether or not the EIA will collect behind-the-meter energy information. The senators say this information will be particularly crucial to making sure big tech companies do so I fell The agreement reached at the White House earlier this month in which consumers pledged not to bear the costs of using electricity in data centers will honor their promises.