New York to Temporarily Ban Large-Scale New Data Center Construction

BlockBeats News, July 14th, New York Governor Hochul signed an order to pause the construction of new hyperscale data centers. The ban took immediate effect and applies to data centers with a power capacity of 50 megawatts or above.

Prior to this, according to Fortune citing a research report, the rapid expansion of AI data centers in the United States has significantly driven up public electricity costs. The PJM Market Monitoring Unit, which oversees the electricity grid in 14 states in the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest of the U.S., estimates that the additional electricity demand from data centers will result in electricity users bearing an additional cost of about $23 billion. This impact is expected to last at least until the end of 2028.

The report stated that although many large tech companies have pledged to bear the additional power infrastructure costs, since the costs of public facilities such as transmission lines, substations, and grid upgrades are usually evenly distributed by regulatory agencies, some of the expenses may still be passed on to residents and regular commercial users.

The research also pointed out that some data centers can reduce their electricity usage during peak grid periods through flexible load adjustments, thereby reducing the grid costs allocated based on peak loads. However, despite this adjustment, they still consume a large amount of electricity, leading to their actual costs being potentially lower than the pressure they impose on the grid.