Safety margin set to narrow – yes that buffer that helps prevent cascading failure events
The US electricity grid is likely to be highly constrained and less stable by 2030, and datacenters aren’t helping.…
Some regions are forecast to have a safety margin that leaves little reserve capacity to cover emergencies.
These gloomy predictions come in a report from energy infrastructure biz Schneider Electric. It calculates there will be just enough grid capacity to power all expected electricity demand through 2030, but the safety margins are set to become “increasingly thin” as the end of the decade approaches, with some regions likely to come dangerously close to a shortfall.
Schneider used forecast data and metrics supplied annually to the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) by US Regional Transmission Operators (RTOs) and Independent System Operators (ISOs) to gauge the level of grid capacity and safety margins. It then analysed how well it might accommodate all projected demand, including that from datacenters, between 2025 and 2030.
The report, “Assessing the US Power System’s Ability to Support Data Center Growth” [PDF], says the grid is now experiencing a surge in energy requirements, following a lengthy period of little growth or even a decline due to systems becoming more efficient.
This echoes an earlier report from management consultancy Bain & Company, which claimed energy companies had been caught on the hop by the unexpected rapid increase power requirements, which could outstrip supply in just a couple of years, unless utilities are able to boost their energy generation by up to 26 percent by 2028.
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