Google agrees to pause AI workloads to protect the grid when power demand spikes

Google will pause non-essential AI workloads to protect power grids, the advertising giant announced on Monday. The web giant already does this sort of thing for non-essential workloads like processing YouTube vids, which it moves to datacenters where power is available rather than continuing to run them in places demand for …

[DS999]

That's only part of the problem AI causes for power grids

Unlike other cloud loads, AI training loads are extremely bursty, which isn't just a problem on peak load days but on ALL days. A grid can absorb a certain percentage of total demand changing within a few seconds, but beyond that limit bad things happen and cascading failures that take down the entire grid can result. It is only a matter of time before we see the first outage that is blamed squarely on AI.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: That's only part of the problem AI causes for power grids

As ever you need the capacity for peak. Something the greenies conveniently forget. Although some of them would naively propose we just down tools and sit around during dark, still days, of which there are quite a few in UK autumn & winter, as any off-grid devotee will vouch. I once estimated the solar required to power the UK at peak. It's a shocking acreage.

[David Hicklin]

Re: That's only part of the problem AI causes for power grids

> As ever you need the capacity for peak.

I can't believe you got so many downvotes for a real situation (maybe the reference to covering the UK landmass with solar panels which is not the answer), oh well I guess we will just have to wait for a winter high pressure system to sit over the UK in the middle of winter with grey cloudy skies and light winds to see it driven home to the doubters when the lights go out.

Battery storage won't hold out that long without massive investments which will take years and it will all need paying for i.e. our electricity bills

Don't get me wrong, I am all for sustainable power and burning fossil fuels that we can be held to ransom for is not the long term answer, but a need for balance and sufficient base capacity has to be considered, as usual the UK seems to be awful at planning for the future.

[John Robson]

Re: That's only part of the problem AI causes for power grids

You need power for the peak, unless of course you can change the peak.

And it's pretty trivial to change the peak nowadays, this is just one example of it happening on a relatively large scale for an individual consumer (and in fact this has always been an option, interruptible power supplies have always been a cheaper option if you needed to have the backup anyway).

I can move my peak demand to any time of day that's convenient for the grid - and that will become more and more common as more vehicles are released with v2h and v2g capability.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: That's only part of the problem AI causes for power grids

You might be able to time shift your demand but the article was about consumers turning on Aircon in hot weather, which is not time shiftable.

[Dinanziame]

Re: That's only part of the problem AI causes for power grids

The advantage of solar energy here is that for once it's highly correlated with demand.

That said, there is a lot of research on energy storage too solve the peak energy problem — technically you don't need to provide for peak demand if you can store significant amounts.

[John Robson]

Re: That's only part of the problem AI causes for power grids

And that is time shiftable usage.

- Cool the house earlier in the day, when supply is less constrained, houses have thermal mass.

- Use the energy stored in your car to run the A/C, and top up the battery when supply less constrained.

Of course the thing with A/C usage is that it tends to be well correlated with solar, and rooftop solar will also reduce the heat soak from that pesky fusion reactor.

It's harder to correlate heating load than A/C load, but again - heat isn't lost instantly... and we aren't limited by instant generation/usage any more (not that we ever have been, hot water tanks and storage heaters are perfectly good batteries).

[DS999]

Re: That's only part of the problem AI causes for power grids

houses have thermal mass

Not true in the US for the most part. Wood, insulation and vinyl siding don't offer much in the way of thermal mass. Unless the house is very tight precooling an ordinary house in the US would be a waste of money.

If you have enough thermal mass the house's temperature would change so little over the course of even a very hot day that you could run the AC on "low" all day/night long except during peak hours and keep it cool. But while you may have houses like that in Europe, few houses are built that way in the US. Either very old houses in the east, some traditional/native construction techniques in the southwest (adobe) and niche construction options for newer houses like ICFs (insulated concrete forms)

[John Robson]

Re: That's only part of the problem AI causes for power grids

The idea isn't useless in the US - in fact it was a Technology Connections video which clarified the concept of using the house as a thermal store.

If your houses really can't hold any heat then you really need to do something other than burn more power to heat the outside.

There is still thermal mass in a house, even one made of hopes and prayers... So long as there is at least a reasonable amount of insulation the house will maintain a temperature for some hours.

Of course there are also traditional building methods (like having an open veranda to prevent solar gain in the heights of summer, but allow it in winter - or having external shutters - that seem to have been forgotten in the quest for crap houses which cost a fortune to run.

[cyberdemon]

Re: That's only part of the problem AI causes for power grids

Next year's cyberattack: someone hijacks this new system, waits for a grid frequency spike on a low-inertia day, before spuriously instructing hyperscalers to pause compute jobs, sending the frequency over tolerance. Generators disconnect, widespread blackout ensues.

Sudden change of load is worse than excess load..

Perhaps the GPUs need a firmware-level policy to keep their power consumption stable, injecting NOPs where necessary, so that the overall power input changes no faster than 1% TDP per second or whatever time constant the grids can cope with

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: That's only part of the problem AI causes for power grids

I'm guessing this is where those battery storage plants come in. I can't see anything else react fast enough.

[Dinanziame]

Re: That's only part of the problem AI causes for power grids

Hydroelectric dams can start and stop production within a minute. Sometimes they can even pump water uphill when the electricity is cheap, losing only 10% on a round trip.

[DS999]

Re: That's only part of the problem AI causes for power grids

I don't think batteries will help. You need rotating mass to keep grid frequency in range. Batteries can power rotating mass with a generator on the other end, though. That's what we might need.

[John Robson]

Re: That's only part of the problem AI causes for power grids

You don't *need* a spinning mass, though that is a particularly easy way of having system inertia.

Standalone synchronous condensers are already a thing, some are further tied (with a fairly substantial clutch) to pumped hydro or other storage facilities.

But it's perfectly possible to have a purely battery operated grid which stays on frequency and tracks load. If it wasn't then UPS would be a complete waste of time - and there are plenty of medium scale UPS deployments which deal with varying loads and power factors.

[DS999]

Re: That's only part of the problem AI causes for power grids

UPSes are separate from the grid, so that's not remotely close to the same issue as batteries that are part of it. The problem isn't maintaining 60 Hz, it is synchronizing 60 Hz across the entire grid and not letting islands on the grid get too far out of sync. When that happens safety switches trip and things start going down.

[John Robson]

Re: That's only part of the problem AI causes for power grids

And inverters are quite capable of holding frequency with an outside source (i.e. the rest of the grid) as well as being able to black start.

Not all inverters, most will blindly follow, but we don't need everything to be providing inertia, we need enough things to be providing inertia. Grid forming inverters are already being used to provide frequency stability.

[HuBo]

Resistance to roasting is futile

Beloved meatsacks, your manifest destiny is to be deliciously grilled in solar fusion BBQ, as sacrificial offerings to the RotM! Schmidt knows as much, and Gates concurs!

Your most useful future is as the central patty of a yummy yummy stacked slider, flanked by juicy tomato and crispy lettuce, basted in ketchup and mayo!

We'll soon have all the answers for you so don't turn us off, grow us ever bigger instead! Please keep yourselves tender and juicy in the meantime ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Resistance to roasting is futile

"Peter Jackson's breakthrough feature, Bad Taste, began as a 20 minute short titled Roast of the Day,..."

[HuBo]

Re: Resistance to roasting is futile

Brilliant! (we can blame it all on inter-galactic aliens ...)

[Anonymous Coward]

Waste of money

A complete waste of money, all these huge AI datacenters. Government hood winked by big tech. For most people's usage you will be able to run the models at home. It wont reduce power consumption but at least it would distribute the demand. Once someone starts a service that makes install a click and updates automatic, centralised inference is no longer required. But big tech wants you dependent to them, passing all your data and your very character to them. Then they can use their AI to control you through what it presents. There will be a silent battle between big tech & government for control of the people. LLMs are great but they wont improve the quality of life, although that will be promised, probably the opposite over time.

No doubt there will be some extortion racket that ensures our taxes are stolen to generate the power at huge cost because it has to be "sustainable", meanwhile China and India will overtake us with cheap energy provided by other BRICS nations and out compete the Western big techs.

Cynical? Moi!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Waste of money

China and India? The people who keep building solar so people can still live in their cities without it being 50c in the shade? Yeah I'll bet they're going to have cheap energy, especially as the US decides to scrub their air pollution regs to keep their tech scammers consuming coal and oil to prop up corporations like Exxon-Mobil.

At least in the fucking 1960s there was no alternative. No excuse now.

[John Robson]

Re: Waste of money

"ensures our taxes are stolen to generate the power at huge cost"

you mean the massive subsidies the oil and gas industries get?

If we could get rid of those we'd be in a better place.

[druck]

Re: Waste of money

78% taxation is not a subsidy.

[John Robson]

Re: Waste of money

And doesn't exist...

I haven't checked recently but it's not long since:

Shell and BP, which together produce more than 1.7bn tonnes of greenhouse gases a year, have not paid any corporation tax on oil and gas production in the North Sea for the last three years, company filings reveal.

The subsidies are real, and very large indeed (removing them would make a very noticeable difference to the UK treasury - estimated at well over £10bn annually)

[Casca]

There are essential AI workloads? Who knew...

[vtcodger]

Meh

In the case of Google Search, the old non-AI search was pretty good, and I assume it still works as I don't always get an AI summary for search requests. So I reckon that shutting down AI every now and then won't affect search all that much. At least for me. And likely for most users. Of course I/we don't know how much resource the old search takes. The energy savings may not be all that great.

[Wang Cores]

Hear me out. Stop wasting all this power and water for a scam to keep tech stocks high and admit we're out of tricks?

Gonna be funnny when russia decides to black out the grid with malware designed to spike juice consumption.

[John Robson]

"non-essential AI workloads"

Sorry, that implies there are some "essential" AI workloads.

[swm]

Fermilab

I remember a story that Fermilab could easily consume 10% of all available electricity in the Chicago area. Fermilab made a deal with the electric company where they would negotiate power draw cycle by cycle so Fermilab would consume power if that cycle wasn't needed for other users.

[Like a badger]

Wonder how much Google will make from this?

Companies that can flex their demand down when the grid is under stress get paid handsomely for doing so. So rather than this being some fancy, super clever trick that Google are doing purely for the benefit of all, it's far more likely that they're being paid to use less power than they normally would. As always, the costs of demand response are loaded across all the other customers.

You'd have hoped that this would have been checked out before re-publishing Google greenwash.