[hinkley]

I have been told by tech writers that Google discovered that at some point electricians will refuse to route more power into a building. So even if you created a separate thermal plant, you still have issues.

[eternauta3k]

Really? I imagine datacenters are not reaching powers anywhere near those of e.g. arc furnaces.

[zamfi]

Arc furnace: peak of about 250 MW to melt the steel [1]

Datacenter: seems to cap out at around 850 MW [2]

Same ballpark I guess? Probably both are limited by inexpensive power availability + other connectivity factors (road/rail, fiber).

[1]: “Therefore, a 300-tonne, 300 MVA EAF will require approximately 132 MWh of energy to melt the steel, and a "power-on time" (the time that steel is being melted with an arc) of approximately 37 minutes.” via https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_arc_furnace

[2]: https://www.racksolutions.com/news/blog/how-many-servers-doe...

[hinkley]

I knew they were putting ridiculous power into these buildings but that’s absurd.

How many backup generators does that need??

[repiret]

Some electricians just assume you’re on a budget.

There’s always some limiting factor, and there’s always some (possibly crazy expensive) way to resolve it and get a bit more power until you run into the next limiting factor.

[hinkley]

Why would they assume Google or Amazon for that matter, are on a budget?

[kuchenbecker]

You build another datacenter rather than make the existing bigger.