CEO of UK's National Grid warns of datacenters' thirst for power
- Reference: 1711522935
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/03/27/ceo_of_uks_national_grid/
- Source link:
In a [1]speech delivered to the Aurora Forum in Oxford, Pettigrew mentioned growing demand for energy to power datacenters, alongside increased adoption of electric cars and heat pumps.
The CEO observed that the UK's energy industry has reached a "pivotal moment … that requires innovative thinking and bold actions to create a transmission network for tomorrow's future."
[2]
He expressed fear that incremental change may not do the job.
[3]
[4]
"Do we also need to take a collective step back, and consider whether there are alternative long-term approaches to build a grid that is fit not just for the next 20 years, but for the next 60?" he asked.
He didn't answer the rhetorical question, but did suggest "One approach we think has potential is the construction of an ultra-high voltage onshore transmission network of up to 800 thousand volts."
[5]
Pettigrew supposed that this new network "would be superimposed on the existing supergrid – a super-supergrid if you like" and would "enable bulk power transfers around the country, with strategically located ultra-high capacity substations, supporting the connection of big energy sources to big demand centers via the new network."
It would also create spare capacity that would "open up opportunities for economic growth that could otherwise be constrained by a transmission network that is essentially reaching capacity."
Pettigrew mentioned AI and the datacenters that deliver it as among the economic opportunities a better energy grid could help to realize.
[6]As AI booms, land near nuclear power plants becomes hot real estate
[7]One rack. 120kW of compute. Taking a closer look at Nvidia's DGX GB200 NVL72 beast
[8]UK awards £1.73M to AI projects to advance net zero goals
[9]Google searches for boss to get grip on climate, energy costs of this AI hype cycle
The CEO is not alone in predicting that datacenters will soon gobble more energy.
According to an International Energy Agency (IEA) [10]report from January, global datacenter energy consumption is expected to double by 2026. And if OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's recent [11]comments are anything to go by, that estimate may be conservative.
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Last northern Spring, a survey of 700 datacenter professionals across Europe found that access to cheap, reliable power was among their [13]top concerns . Another report estimated that, within two years, datacenters would account for a third of Ireland's electrical consumption.
In fact, in order to ensure a steady supply of uninterrupted power, Microsoft has gone as far as to build a 170 megawatt gas power plant to keep its €900 million ($975 million) datacenter development outside Dublin [14]up and running . According to Microsoft, the plant is designed to provide backup power and only operates when the national electrical grid is constrained or experiences an outage.
Meanwhile, in the US, e-commerce giant Amazon recently [15]paid $650 million to acquire a nuclear-powered datacenter in Pennsylvania. ®
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[1] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/transforming-supergrid-1950s-network-built-future-come-john-pettigrew-jpbcf/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZgP8UD-o-GdHigG8pV4WhQAAAFY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
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[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZgP8UD-o-GdHigG8pV4WhQAAAFY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZgP8UD-o-GdHigG8pV4WhQAAAFY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/25/ai_boom_nuclear/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/21/nvidia_dgx_gb200_nvk72/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/20/uk_awards_173m_to_ai/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/12/google_job_ad_and_alphabet/
[10] https://www.iea.org/reports/electricity-2024
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/22/openai_intel_chips/
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZgP8UD-o-GdHigG8pV4WhQAAAFY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/18/access_to_cheap_reliable_power/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/22/microsoft_power_plant/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/04/amazon_acquires_cumulus_nuclear_datacenter/
[16] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: More energy needed?
Energy generation won't be the primary concern, but delivering it will be.
The Netherlands is a good case study. We are generating more than enough power, got plenty of wind farms nicely ruining our views, and EV chargers all over the shop.
So what's the problem? Well, we can't use it all.
It is overloading our old infrastructure, bottleneck after bottleneck. Not enough manpower to upgrade the capacity, and not enough manpower to realise new connections where the infrastructure can actually handle it.
It slows economic growth, it slows the energy transition, and it affects the housing problems (there are a couple of places where they finished housing, but they cannot get electricity there, so the nice sustainable induction stoves and heatpumps don't work.)
We have committed to laying off natural gas and combustion vehicles, and genuinely did a pretty good job with pushing sustainable energy (other than the ugly wind farms but can't have it all eh?), but in typical government fashion a success has to be overshadowed by a collossal cock-up because they didn't look ahead at all.
It seems that you're not quite at that stage yet in the UK, so listen to the warning signs and act upon them.
Re: More energy needed?
There are dozens of new renewable energy projects on hold because of the crumbling infrastructure that can't handle it.
We're already there.
As for the 'nimby' comment about 'ruining the view'... so what. A nice view of a burning planet is preferable to a few wind turbines in some peoples minds. Suck it up and accept our selfishness has to take a back seat for a change.
Re: More energy needed?
They are but they can't get connected. It is taking many years to get a grid connection and there are ongoing issues relating to new building transmission lines needed to get the power from the new sources to where it is needed.
off peak power
AI responding is real-time, but AI training could, if you really wanted to, be shifted to off-peak times, or suspended when power prices peak
Re: off peak power
Properly useful large model training takes weeks, not hours with 10's of thousands of GPUs.
You really don't want to add time to that process.
Also what do you do with all that expensive hardware during the time it's not training?
Re: off peak power
what do you do with all that expensive hardware during the time it's not training?
Turn it off. It's not adding any (positive) value to society.
(Do I mean turn it off 24x7? I'll leave you to decide that)
Re: off peak power
800kv applied direct to the logic boards should solve the problem and be quite illuminating.
Re: off peak power
"You really don't want to add time to that process."
Until you can fix the problem of AI generated falsehoods, we should be pausing.
Re: off peak power
We could become world leaders in Economy 7 AI.
Re: off peak power
Or... simply ban any new data centres from using the grid. You have to supply your own renewable energy so you're not taxing the grid for everyone else to suffer so you can crunch a few extra numbers over some idiots attempt to generate nudes of taylor swift.
Easy fix for datacenters
Require all datacenters to generate all their own electricity on site. This would transfer the problem to the companies causing the problem rather than the taxpayers or other electricity users.
More energy needed?
Better start building those windfarms now.