The proliferation of data centers aiming to meet the computational needs of AI could be bad news for the US power grid, according to a new report in Bloomberg.
Using the 1 million residential sensors tracked by Whisker Labs, along with market intelligence data from DC Byte, Bloomberg found that more than half of the households showing the worst power distortions live within 20 miles of significant data center activity.
In other words, there appears to be a link between data center proximity and “bad harmonics” — a term for the less-than-ideal flow of electrical power into homes.
Bloomberg says this “distorted” power could eventually destroy plugged-in appliances, increase vulnerability to electrical fires, and even lead to brownouts and blackouts. And AI data centers could be even more problematic because of their volatile energy requirements.
“No grid is designed to be able to handle that kind of load fluctuation not only for one data center but for multiple data centers at the same time,” said Bloom Energy’s chief commercial officer Aman Joshi.
A spokesperson for Chicago’s Commonwealth Edison told Bloomberg the utility “strongly questions the accuracy and underlying assumptions of Whisker Lab’s claims.”
AI data centers are multiplying across the US and sucking up huge amounts of power. New evidence shows they may also be distorting the normal flow of electricity for millions of Americans. This map shows readings from about 770,000 home sensors, with red zones indicating areas with the most distorted power.
The problem is threatening billions in damage to home appliances and aging power equipment, especially in areas like Chicago and “data center alley” in Northern Virginia, where distorted power readings are above recommended levels.
Every day, Americans reach into their refrigerators or turn on their dishwashers without much thought given to the electricity flowing through their homes. But a hidden problem now threatens these seemingly mundane tasks: distorted power supplies.
The term for the issue is “bad harmonics.” It may seem a bit esoteric, but you can think of it like the static that can be heard when a speaker’s volume is jacked up higher than it can handle. Electricity travels across high-voltage lines in waves, and when those wave patterns deviate from what’s considered ideal, it distorts the power that flows into homes. Bad harmonics can force home electronics to run hot, or even cause the motors in refrigerators and air conditioners to rattle. It’s an issue that can add up to billions of dollars in total damage.
More importantly, bad harmonics are symptomatic of much deeper problems that are engulfing the US grid.
Distorted waves are just one measure of broader power quality. When homes experience good, or stable, power quality, it means that the flow of electricity for lights and appliances is being delivered at an even and predictable pace. The worse power quality gets, the more the risk increases. Sudden surges or sags in electrical supplies can lead to sparks and even home fires. Left unaddressed, one problem can morph into another. That means the bad harmonics of today can be a sign of potential disaster down the road.
“Harmonics are a pretty good canary in the coal mine for early signs of stress and problems,” said Bob Marshall, chief executive officer of Whisker Labs Inc.
Whisker Labs tracks power quality in real-time using roughly 1 million residential sensors, which are spread so widely across the country that nearly 90% of US homes are within half a mile of one. A Bloomberg analysis of exclusive sensor data coupled with data from DC Byte, a market intelligence firm, showed a strong link between proximity to data centers and worsening harmonics.
More than half of the tracked households showing the worst distortions of power quality are located within 20 miles of significant data center activity, according to the analysis, which covered readings from February through October. US census figures show that about 3.7 million Americans live in the most-impacted areas.
Experts have been warning for some time now about the impact data centers will have on power grids across the globe. The AI boom has only underscored the issue: The digital economy is sucking up so much power that demand is now straining available supplies of electricity in many parts of the world, leading to concerns over price increases and even widespread outages. And that’s only projected to worsen as more data centers are built.
The new harmonics data shows how these problems are already starting to play out in real time across the US.
It’s an issue that goes beyond just whether or not there’s enough power to flip the lights on. Distortions mean that even as electricity is flowing to homes, the quality can be eroded enough to destroy appliances and increase vulnerability to electrical fires if there’s a voltage surge. Poorer power quality overall can also eventually lead to lights flickering along with brownouts and blackouts.
“We need to understand those risks,” said Hasala Dharmawardena, a senior engineer of power systems modeling studies at the North American Electric Reliability Corp., where he is part of a team looking at data centers.
The grid has never faced the kinds of strain that comes with data centers. These city-sized users can pop up very quickly, within a year or two, which is much faster than grid planning usually happens. Even during population booms, the rise in power demand paled in comparison to the expected installation in the coming years of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of these facilities to power AI. That stress is adding to problems of aging infrastructure, extreme weather and the electrification of more parts of everyday life, such as the rise of electric vehicles.
It’s especially important to understand the power system impact from AI “because it is such a big hammer” on the grid, Dharmawardena said. “The data center is a very large load. Take your house and increase that by 10,000. That is the difference between your house and a data center.”
The US today is by far the largest operator of data centers in the world, with Northern Virginia’s hub boasting more than twice as much operational capacity as Beijing, its next-biggest rival, according to estimates from Bloomberg Intelligence. But other countries are racing to build out their own facilities, with growth expected in nations including Saudi Arabia, Ireland and Malaysia, which will all face their own pressures on domestic power systems.
The problems in the US are compounded by the fact that not enough investment has gone into the grid to fortify it for the coming demand boom. For decades, US power use was largely flat. Now, it’s about to be turbocharged. The nation’s demand for electricity will surge almost 16% over the next five years, more than triple the estimate from a year ago, driven largely by new data centers, according to a recent report from Grid Strategies, a DC-based consulting firm.
The increase means that without major improvements to the grid and power equipment, harmonics issues seen today are likely to get worse.
Some of the biggest data-center clusters are near big cities, so that the facilities can tap into larger grids and the fiber networks that are often located close to consumers for latency issues. That underscores why harmonics are often worse in urban areas.
But while the effect appears to be more severe where population density is higher, Bloomberg’s analysis shows that even in rural areas, sensors that are closer to significant data center activity are more likely to have distorted power.
