Data Center Alley, a 30-square-mile stretch outside Washington D.C. and home to more than 200 data centers, consumes roughly the same electricity as Boston. So power company officials were alarmed when a big chunk of those centers – 60 of them – suddenly dropped off the grid one day last summer and switched to on-site generators.
The mass reaction was triggered by a standard safety mechanism across the data center industry, intended to protect computer chips and electronic equipment from damage caused by voltage fluctuations. But it caused a huge surge in excess electricity, according to federal regulators and utility executives.
The magnitude of the imbalance forced grid operator PJM and local utility Dominion Energy to scale back output from power plants to protect grid infrastructure and avoid a worst-case scenario of cascading power outages across the region.
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