GoKawiil
Tech News
The U.S. Energy Department announced nearly $2 billion in funding, drawn from the bipartisan infrastructure law, for 31 grid modernization projects across 26 states. The projects aim to add more than 23 gigawatts of capacity, using technologies like real-time weather sensors to safely boost transmission line output. PPL Corp. in Pennsylvania will receive $71.5 million to upgrade a 30-mile high-voltage line.
NVIDIA, Google, and startup Emerald AI have created the AI Energy Management Alliance (AEMA), a coalition aimed at making AI data centers more flexible in their power consumption. The group wants facilities to be able to shift workloads, tap batteries, and cut usage during peak demand, in exchange for utilities granting faster grid connections and potentially sharing infrastructure costs.
AI training campuses can swing 70% of their electrical load within milliseconds and disconnect just as abruptly to protect expensive compute hardware, a pattern conventional grid infrastructure was never designed to handle. Analysis of the setup shows the standard power stack—medium-voltage feeds, transformers, and uninterruptible power supplies—fails at three points: undersized battery buffers, converters run in bypass mode that let raw swings and grid transients pass unfiltered, and protection logic built for far smaller loads that trips offline at the worst possible moment. The 2024 Virginia grid disturbance was traced largely to this outdated protection logic disconnecting under stress.
A new study in AGU Advances models how a rare, extreme geomagnetic storm—similar in scale to the 1859 Carrington Event—would strain the modern US power grid. Researchers found the Northeast and Northern Plains, particularly higher-latitude areas, face the greatest risk of widespread grid failure, with total economic losses estimated at $1.5 to $2 billion per day.
US electricity demand climbed about 1.7% annually from 2020 to 2025, more than ten times the growth rate utilities saw in the prior fifteen years, driven by data centers, EV charging stations and reshored manufacturing. Much of the transmission network carrying that load dates to the 1950s-1980s, causing sagging lines, overheating transformers and voltage drops as usage climbs.
The UK's grid connection queue is overwhelmed with speculative data center projects that are unlikely to ever be built, worsening wait times and complicating energy demand forecasts. Ofgem has proposed requiring developers to post large nonrefundable deposits, potentially reaching hundreds of millions of dollars for the biggest projects, and to demonstrate secured customers and funding before joining the queue. The plan is open for industry feedback until September before being finalized.