When Microsoft and the owners of the Three Mile Island nuclear facility in Central Pennsylvania announced a 20-year power purchase agreement last fall, it sent shockwaves through the utility community.
Not only was the plant coming back online, it was being done for the sole purpose of an individual user — showing not only the size and scale of the country’s largest tech companies but their desperate search for a source to power their products and services.
A wave of the future — or a unique event available only because of the availability of the plant? A panel at the recent N.J. Utilities Association event weighed in.
John DaCosta, director, design and engineering data center technology and systems for Google data centers, said the company is keeping all options open.
Google already has announced a deal with a small nuclear company that aims to bring three gigawatts of power online by 2030, DaCosta said.
In a time when the massive amounts of energy needed to power data centers and AI are becoming increasingly harder to come by, companies need to find alternatives, DaCosta told an overflow crowd.
DaCosta said Google is looking at alternative strategies, including self-generation.
“We’re working with providers to get additional power online by whatever means is necessary,” he said.
By whatever means — but not at any cost.
At least, not at any cost to the environment.
Google long ago announced an aim to be carbon-neutral by 2030. DaCosta said the company takes its vow to be good stewards of the environment seriously.
“It’s a delicate dance when you’re in a growth mode and you need a lot of power,” he said. “We’re making sure that we’re doing everything we can to look out for environmental impacts as well.”
Panelist Zenon Christodoulou, a commissioner at the N.J. Board of Public Utilities, said the BYOE concept is intriguing.
“It’s a concept that people have been talking about: Bring Your Own Energy,” he said. “We definitely understand the need for data centers. It’s transformative, disruptive. But the impact that it could have unless they bring their own energy, then it really crowds out every other kind of investment.”
Where do we go from here? That was the overarching question of the conference.
The state clearly has a shortage of power generation – the big rise in prices this month, caused by a supply-demand issue — certainly showed that. Also clear is that renewables such as solar and wind are not going to fill the need, as hoped.
That has many turning to nuclear — perhaps starting with small modules — in an effort to create their own energy.
Does the BYOE concept make sense for New Jersey? It’s too early to tell.
This much is clear.
“The need for power is there,” DaCosta said. “It’s growing. And it’s going to continue to grow, from what we’re seeing and what we’re forecasting.”
