{"id":209617,"date":"2026-02-03T08:34:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T13:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/03\/data-centers-told-to-pitch-in-as-storms-and-cold-weather-boost-power-demand\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T14:15:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T19:15:19","slug":"data-centers-told-to-pitch-in-as-storms-and-cold-weather-boost-power-demand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/03\/data-centers-told-to-pitch-in-as-storms-and-cold-weather-boost-power-demand\/","title":{"rendered":"Data centers told to pitch in as storms and cold weather boost power demand"},"content":{"rendered":"

Data centers told to pitch in as storms and cold weather boost power demand<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/theconversation.com\/data-centers-told-to-pitch-in-as-storms-and-cold-weather-boost-power-demand-274604<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-02-03 08:34:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: theconversation.com<\/a><\/p>\n

As Winter Storm Fern swept across the United States in late January 2026, bringing ice, snow and freezing temperatures, it left more than a million people without power, mostly in the Southeast. <\/p>\n

Scrambling to meet higher than average demand, PJM, the nonprofit company that operates the grid serving much of the mid-Atlantic U.S., asked for federal permission to generate more power, even if it caused high levels of air pollution from burning relatively dirty fuels.<\/p>\n

Energy Secretary Chris Wright agreed and took another step, too. He authorized PJM and ERCOT \u2013 the company that manages the Texas power grid \u2013 as well as Duke Energy, a major electricity supplier in the Southeast, to tell data centers and other large power-consuming businesses to turn on their backup generators. <\/p>\n

The goal was to make sure there was enough power available to serve customers as the storm hit. Generally, these facilities power themselves and do not send power back to the grid. But Wright explained that their \u201cindustrial diesel generators\u201d could \u201cgenerate 35 gigawatts of power, or enough electricity to power many millions of homes.\u201d<\/p>\n

We are scholars of the electricity industry who live and work in the Southeast. In the wake of Winter Storm Fern, we see opportunities to power data centers with less pollution while helping communities prepare for, get through and recover from winter storms.<\/p>\n

The electronics in data centers consume large amounts of electricity.<\/span>
\n RJ Sangosti\/MediaNews Group\/The Denver Post via Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n

Data centers use enormous quantities of energy<\/h2>\n

Before Wright\u2019s order, it was hard to say whether data centers would reduce the amount of electricity they take from the grid during storms or other emergencies. <\/p>\n

This is a pressing question, because data centers\u2019 power demands to support generative artificial intelligence are already driving up electricity prices in…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Data centers told to pitch in as storms and cold weather boost power demand https:\/\/theconversation.com\/data-centers-told-to-pitch-in-as-storms-and-cold-weather-boost-power-demand-274604…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":209618,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/715498\/original\/file-20260130-56-lex676.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&rect=0%2C500%2C6000%2C3000&q=45&auto=format&w=1356&h=668&fit=crop","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-209617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209617"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209617"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":209619,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209617\/revisions\/209619"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}