Lake Tahoe residents abandoned by its energy supplier who wants to power AI data centers

[thewayne]

Ah, capitalism at its finest!

49,000 California residents of the area get their power from California-based Liberty Utilities, who get their power from Nevada-based NV Energy, and come May 2027, NV is going to start sending its power to data centers because it can make more money.

Lake Tahoe is an Alpine lake that is divided by the California/Nevada border, most of it on the California side. It looks to me like most of the residents are on the western/California side.

California regulators can't do much because it's a Nevada utility. Nevada won't do much of anything because it's California residents that have the problem and thus is not their voters/tax-payersresponsibility.

From the article, emphasis mine: "However, NV Energy representatives pushed back on the idea that data centers are the main culprit behind the decision to stop supplying energy to the Lake Tahoe community, telling Fortune that it was part of a long-term transition predating the AI boom. After NV Energy initially sold its California assets to Liberty in 2009, it struck a series of temporary agreements to keep providing power to Lake Tahoe until Liberty could secure another energy supplier.

Now, for whatever reason, NV Energy has decided it cannot keep extending such agreements. That leaves Liberty scrambling to find a new energy supplier as it plans to offer a replacement contract for any bidders capable of meeting California’s renewable energy requirements." *cough* more money from data centers *cough*

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/05/energy-supplier-abandons-lake-tahoe-residents-to-serve-data-centers/

Comments

[ranunculus]

I'm just about ready to buy a small solar system. I'm looking at a heat pump (for cooling, not heat) system, at least to start with. Need to do some more homework before I actually buy anything. My winter power use is between 6 and 8.5 kwh per day - My stove is propane, water heater propane and heat is wood. Apparently a full solar system for the house would be about 15K, but just a heat pump is about 3,500. Summer bills have hit 17 to 18 kwh, and I'd rather not pay that to the utility.

[thewayne]

Sounds like it could be a nice investment.

[disneydream06]

WOWZA!!!!!!!!!!!
Lake Tahoe is pretty big profile to be getting dumped like that.
My money, and it is Nevada after all so let's gamble here, is on the AI as the culprit.
We shall have lots of data and nobody to use it at this rate.
Hugs, Jon

[thewayne]

Everybody thinks that the AI that they are betting on is the one that is going to win.  The reality is that there is a bubble and there's going to be an awful lot of failures, and a lot of these data centers are going to empty really quick, IF they are ever built at all.

[disneydream06]

There are still people/politicians pushing them here.
I thought we had won against a big one awhile back, but it sounds like it's trying to make a comeback again. :o
As long as that bubble doesn't take the rest of us down with them, I look forward to the burst. :o

[thewayne]

They are completely unfeasable in terms of water and energy consumption, plus air pollution and heat production.  But politicians can only see dollar signs, both from taxes and bribes, err, donations.

[disneydream06]

Not direct taxes of course.
I am sure they all get deals not to pay any taxes for years. UGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[garote]

Data centers are like the pick axes sold to Gold Rush prospectors - a surer way to get rich than actually trying to strike gold - and they have an advantage that they’re rented rather than sold. So if the prospector (AI company) paying you to rent it goes bankrupt on a bad claim (makes a dumb data set no one wants), you just wipe everything and rent it to the next prospector.

Long-term, and with proper planning, the resource costs are actually not that bad. (I mean, damn, imagine if the people wringing their hands about data center resource usage bothered to read a few facts about THE MEAT INDUSTRY.) The major problem currently is of course the short-term speculation: Build it faster than the other guy, and charge super-high rent because you’re in a period of massive unmet demand. It’s gonna cost many of these cities/counties/states a lot more than they’re calculating, because when the demand dies back they’ll need to retool to make the facilities sustainable. Deep costs for a long time before they merely break even, and other lost opportunities in the meantime.