Georgia was about to retire coal plants. Then came the data centers.
Utilities nationwide are falling back on fossil fuels to meet huge energy demand.
By Emily Jones / Grist
Posted Yesterday
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Three years ago, one of the country’s largest electric utilities, Southern Company, made a splash when it announced it would retire most of its coal-fired power plants in the coming years, a major step toward the company’s stated goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Southern’s subsidiary utilities — the companies that actually run the coal plants to provide electricity to homes and businesses — backed up the announcement by seeking and obtaining approval to close coal plants from the powerful state regulators who oversee them.
But now the utilities are backtracking. They say they need to meet an extraordinary spike in demand for electricity, mostly from the large facilities packed with computer servers that enable intensive online activity like generative AI and cryptocurrency, known as data centers.
In its latest integrated resource plan, or IRP, Southern Company subsidiary Georgia Power forecasts that demand will go up by 8,200 megawatts (MW) by the winter of 2030-31, more than three times the output of the new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle, the first new nuclear reactors in the U.S. in decades, which Georgia Power and other utilities just spent more than $30 billion to build. To meet that growth, the company is requesting a range of resources, including upgrades to existing nuclear plants, more renewable energy, and improvements to the overall power grid — but it’s also asking to extend the life of heavily-polluting coal plants that were previously slated for retirement.
https://www.popsci.com/environment/georgia-was-about-to-retire-coal-plants-then-came-the-data-centers/
