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Dive Brief:
Grid-enhancing technologies, or GETs, and increased demand response could ease electricity price pressures caused by growing demand from data centers and advanced computing, according to commentary released Tuesday by Columbia University researchers.
Rising electricity prices are driven by various factors, including inefficient infrastructure planning, supply chain inflation, misaligned utility incentives, inefficient grid operations, and storm damage and wildfire costs, the researchers with Columbia’s Center on Global Energy Policy said. Higher load growth — including from data centers — is compounding those pressures, they said.
However, electric bill increases aren’t inevitable, according to the researchers. “Prices rise when new demand triggers high-cost infrastructure buildout, reflects inefficient planning, or shifts costs unevenly across customers,” the researchers said in Electricity Affordability and Load Growth: Diagnosing and Fixing the Problem. “They can fall, or grow more slowly, when low-cost supply is available, existing infrastructure is more fully utilized, and cost allocation ensures that new demand contributes to system efficiency.”
