One fallen power line exposed a growing AI data center problem. Here's how to fix it.
A close call in Northern Virginia revealed just how poorly data centers respond to grid disruptions. A power line went down outside of Washington, DC, this week. Normally, the grid would only need a few seconds to recover from such an event.
Key Takeaways
- But this one took more than 10 minutes because more than 3 gigawatts of data centers stopped drawing power nearly simultaneously.
The event didn't cause a blackout, but it did cause lights across the region to flicker.
- The PJM Interconnection manages grids from New Jersey to Illinois and serves 67 million customers, making it the largest grid operator in the United States.
When the power line went down this week, it triggered data centers to switch to backup power, and about 3.
- The disconnected data centers represented around 3% of total demand on PJM at the time, according to Reuters.
A few percent may not sound like much, but the electrical grid needs to operate in a state of near-perfect balance, with supply and demand closely matched.
- Most data centers make decisions in a split second, and those that disconnected this week appear to be no different.
When the voltage dip reached them, they all decided to disconnect within a few seconds of each other, Ali Zain Banatwala, senior market models specialist at the Independent Electricity System Operator, told TechCrunch.
- The company essentially hides the data center behind a bank of batteries connected to sophisticated power conversion equipment.
Stats & Key Facts
- #The PJM Interconnection manages grids from New Jersey to Illinois and serves 67 million customers, making it the largest grid operator in the United States.
But this one took more than 10 minutes because more than 3 gigawatts of data centers stopped drawing power nearly simultaneously. The event caused voltage across the PJM grid to spike from Northern Virginia to Chicago, according to data collected by Ting Labs , a startup that runs an IoT sensor network out of people's electrical sockets. The event didn't cause a blackout, but it did cause lights across the region to flicker.
The incident demonstrated the effect that data centers can have on the grid - an outcome that experts believe will become more frequent. Northern Virginia, which is in PJM's territory, is home to the highest concentration of data centers in the world. "It's the canary in the coal mine," Ricardo de Azevedo, CTO at ON.
These sorts of events involving large loads like data centers are "happening more and more," he added. The event echoes one that happened two years ago, also on PJM's grid, and it could foreshadow larger events if data centers aren't built to more elegantly handle disruptions to power supplies. The PJM Interconnection manages grids from New Jersey to Illinois and serves 67 million customers, making it the largest grid operator in the United States.
For more details please read the original article at TechCrunch AI.
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