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AI is eating up Pennsylvania's power, governor threatens to pull state from the grid — new plants aren't being built fast enough to keep up with demand


Spiking demand is sending energy bills skyrocketing, while the governor threatens to pull the state from the grid.

Artificial intelligence and the hardware that powers it, is at the heart of a fallout in Pennsylvania, where electricity prices have risen dramatically for wholesalers and consumers due to surging demand. Following the launch of ChatGPT in 2023 and the explosion of competitor tools and chatbots in the months that followed, the regional transmission organization, PJM, saw a surge in demand for power as major tech companies scoured the country looking for spare grid capacity to run AI and build new data centers to support them. PJM's response to the crisis has been to cap energy prices at $325 per megawatt-day, and it has fast-tracked connections of more than 50 power projects that should help augment its existing capacity, but many of those won't come online until the early 2030s.

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