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Americans’electricity bills are up. Don’t blame AI
美国人的电费账单涨了，但这笔账不该算在AI头上
Were it not for data centres, prices might be even higher
要是没有数据中心，电费说不定更高
Power bills are going up in America and the people are angry. They know whom to blame—the bosses of technology firms thirsting for more juice to fuel artificial-intelligence data centres.
美国电费持续上涨，民众怨声载道。他们知道该怪谁——那些渴求更多电力来运行人工智能数据中心的科技公司老板们。
Ashburn, a town of 45,000 in a featureless part of Virginia that has earned the nickname “Data Centre Alley”, has some 150 of these. They consume roughly as much electricity as Philadelphia, a city of 1.6m.
在弗吉尼亚州一个平淡无奇的小镇阿什本（人口4.5万，绰号"数据中心巷"），就聚集着约150座数据中心。这些设施的耗电量与拥有160万人口的费城相当。
On March 4th Donald Trump convened tech leaders to sign a pledge to “build, bring or buy their own power supply…ensuring that Americans’ electricity bills will not increase”.
3月4日，唐纳德·特朗普召集科技领袖签署承诺书，誓言要"建设、引入或购买自有电力供应……确保美国民众电费不会上涨"。
Their solemn pledges notwithstanding, the chief executives can do little to contain prices. That is not, though, because AI is unstoppable. It is because the AI boom is not chiefly to blame for the rising costs.
尽管 CEO 们信誓旦旦，但他们其实无力控制电价。不过，这并非因为AI发展势不可挡，而是因为电价上涨的主要推手并非这轮AI热潮。
In the past few years retail electricity prices have indeed outpaced overall inflation. And data centres are gobbling up more power. Goldman Sachs, a bank, reckons that they will account for nearly half of the overall demand growth in America in the coming years.
过去几年，居民用电价格涨幅确实超过了整体通胀率。而数据中心正在吞噬更多电力。高盛银行预计，未来几年美国电力需求增长中，数据中心将占据近半壁江山。
Yet even bullish forecasts put data centres’ share of total demand at only a fifth in 2030. Today it is less than a tenth. A study last year by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory showed that data-centre load was not the main cause of the rate rises in the five years to 2024. It fingered grid upgrades and rising costs of power-generating equipment and raw materials such as copper.
然而，即便最乐观的预测也显示，到2030年数据中心在总用电需求中的占比也仅为五分之一，目前更是低于十分之一。劳伦斯伯克利国家实验室去年的一项研究表明，在截至2024年的五年间，数据中心负载并非电价上涨的主因。研究指出，电网升级、发电设备以及铜等原材料成本上升才是关键。
Wood Mackenzie, a research firm, estimates that last year demand for distribution transformers outstripped supply by 10%. For power transformers the gap was 30%. Manufacturers report waiting lists for essential grid-related kit stretching to 120 weeks or more, up from 50 weeks in 2021.
据伍德麦肯兹研究公司估算，去年配电变压器的需求量超出供应量10%，电力变压器的供需缺口则达30%。制造商反馈，电网关键设备的排队等待时间已从2021年的50周延长至120周以上。
Many prices started going up in early 2021, nearly two years before the launch of ChatGPT ignited the AI boom. They are likely to keep rising for non-AI reasons.
许多价格早在2021年初就开始上涨，这比 ChatGPT 引发AI热潮早了近两年。而且，即便没有AI因素，电价很可能继续攀升。
The Edison Electric Institute, which represents private-sector utilities, predicts its members’ cumulative capital spending will reach $1.1trn between 2025 and 2029, up from $765bn in the previous five years. More than half the sum for distribution and transmission infrastructure will go on replacing ageing equipment and hardening it against extreme weather made likelier by climate change.
代表私营公用事业的爱迪生电力研究所预测，其成员单位2025年至2029年的累计资本支出将达到1.1万亿美元，高于此前五年的7650亿美元。其中，用于配电和输电基础设施的半数以上资金，将用于更换老化设备，并加强设施以抵御因气候变化而更趋频繁的极端天气。
Between 2019 and 2023 big Californian utilities spent $27bn just on mitigating wildfire risk. These investments have been neglected for years. Now, says an industry bigwig, AI provides a pretext to help win approval from regulators to pass the cost on to consumers.
2019年至2023年间，加州的大型公用事业公司仅用于降低野火风险的支出就高达270亿美元。这些领域的投资已被忽视多年。正如一位业内大佬所言，如今AI成了向监管部门申请批准、将成本转嫁给消费者的绝佳理由。
And these are not the only non-AI cost pressures. Even before the war in Iran caused natural-gas prices to rise, analysts were predicting that domestic buyers would be increasingly competing with foreign ones as more export terminals for liquefied natural gas come online.
这些还只是非AI因素带来的成本压力的一部分。早在伊朗战争推高天然气价格之前，分析人士就预测，随着更多液化天然气出口终端投运，国内买家将日益面临来自国外买家的竞争。
Mr Trump, an inveterate renewables sceptic, has not helped by impeding the growth of solar and wind capacity. Peter Fox-Penner of the Brattle Group, a consultancy, notes that as a result prices are rising needlessly for the cheapest forms of new power generation.
而对可再生能源一贯持怀疑态度的特朗普，其对太阳能和风能发展的阻碍更是雪上加霜。咨询公司布莱特尔集团的彼得·福克斯-彭纳指出，这导致最廉价的新型发电方式的价格不必要地上涨。
AI may even be lowering prices. The tech giants are already investing in their own capacity (mostly, whisper it, in the clean variety). Microsoft has signed a long-term deal to restart a nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island to supply its data centres. Meta has backed a handful of nuclear startups. In December Google’s corporate parent, Alphabet, paid $5bn for Intersect Power, a developer of utility-scale solar power and battery storage. A data centre in Ashburn belonging to Equinix, a big operator, is experimenting with fuel cells.
AI甚至可能在帮助降低电价。科技巨头们已在投资自有电力设施（大多悄悄选择了清洁能源）。微软已签署长期协议，计划重启三哩岛的一座核反应堆，为其数据中心供电。Meta 也支持了几家核能初创企业。去年12月，谷歌母公司 Alphabet 斥资50亿美元收购了公用事业级太阳能发电和电池储能开发商 Intersect Power。而位于阿什本、隶属于大型运营商 Equinix 的一座数据中心，正在尝试使用燃料电池。
Besides adding its own supply, big tech is making existing capacity more flexible. Google has agreed to novel tariff arrangements with Indiana Michigan Power, a midwestern utility, whereby its data centres can reduce their consumption when other demand is high.
除了增加自有供应，大型科技公司还在提升现有电网的灵活性。谷歌已与中西部公用事业公司印第安纳密歇根电力公司达成了新型电价协议，允许其数据中心在用电高峰期减少消耗。
Microsoft is going further. In one of its Irish data centres it uses backup batteries as a “grid stabiliser” that can push power back into the network or draw excess power from it at times of stress. Since grids often run well below full capacity, adding a large, flexible customer can bring in lots of revenue for utilities without requiring costly expansion. This lets the utilities lower rates for households while preserving their margins.
微软则更进一步。在其位于爱尔兰的一座数据中心，它利用备用电池充当"电网稳定器"，在电网紧张时既可向电网回输电力，也可从电网吸纳多余电力。由于电网通常远未满负荷运行，引入一个拥有灵活用电需求的大客户，能为公用事业公司带来可观收入，而无需进行昂贵的扩容。这让公用事业公司在维持自身利润率的同时，得以降低居民电价。
The Electric Power Research Institute, a think-tank, found that some states with high load growth between 2019 and 2024 reported price declines, after adjusting for inflation. The World Resources Institute, another think-tank, notes that in North Dakota rising demand from oil and gas extraction, cryptocurrency miners, data-centre operators and food-processors led to large price reductions for local electricity users.
智库电力研究院发现，在2019年至2024年间，部分用电负荷高速增长的州，经通胀调整后电价反而有所下降。另一家智库世界资源研究所指出，在北达科他州，来自油气开采、加密货币矿场、数据中心运营商和食品加工商的用电需求增长，反而促使当地居民电价大幅下调。
PG&E, a big Californian utility, estimates that adding a gigawatt of load could lower bills by up to 2%. If Americans want lower electricity bills, they should be shouting for more AI, not less.
加州大型公用事业公司太平洋煤气电力公司估计，增加一千兆瓦的用电负荷，可能使电费账单降低高达2%。如果美国人想要更低的电费，他们应该呼吁大力发展AI，而非限制它。
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