I'll admit I don't understand all this, they lost me when they
separated generation and transmission. I don't understand the various
competing electricity suppliers that want you to switch your house to
them. Or the hourly pricing that can even go negative.
It is interesting to think, what if Internet was priced that way. I
just charge you for delivery to your house or business, and then you
pay market rate for bandwidth from "the grid". So on Sunday evening,
it could be $100 per gigabyte. At 3am maybe they pay you to use
Internet. So maybe you download all your porn at 3am, and put solar
panels a Starlink dish on your roof to get Internet at peak times,
maybe some battery storage a Plex server in your basement.
I remember before GTE sold to Verizon who sold to Frontier, DSL was a
little bit like that. The customer would pay a lineshare and DSLAM
port charge to the telco, which would appear on their phone bill, and
then choose an Internet provider who would bill them for bandwidth.
The ISP would pay for a Frame Relay or ATM connection (typically DS3)
to the telco. Then Verizon went to a program where the ISP could pay
the lineshare charge instead of the customer. Of course one of the
providers was the telco's internal ISP, and they had a million ways to
steal your customers or disadvantage you. Anyway ...
But can you imagine the outcry if Internet went to "market rate" for
bandwidth and "time of day pricing"? Hey, Internet isn't a utility,
it's a basic human right.
Even given how ignorant I am of how electricity pricing works, I think
a lot of consumers are even more ignorant. One thing I hear whenever
a solar or wind project is announced, is that the electricity doesn't
stay here in our area, it probably goes to "those people" in Chicago.
Actually, if I go back 20 years to when some of the wind farms were
built, people near them actually thought they would get free
electricity. Most people have no concept of "the grid" or regional
grid operators like PJM. I guess it's like I remember when some BTOP
funded fiber projects were built, I think that was around 2010, people
who saw government funded fiber going down the ROW in front of their
house and saw articles about it in the newspapers, thought they were
getting free Internet.
-----Original Message-----
From: AF <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Mike Hammett
Sent: Monday, November 24, 2025 3:59 PM
To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Data Center Article Series
Everyone pays to production, per kWh of usage (at least in PJM\Illinois).
The substations they build to are usually 138 kV or 345 kV (at least
up here), so that's to the core of the grid.
Again, at least in PJM, the datacenters weren't the cause of the
increased electric bills (or even a meaningful portion). It was the
retirement of plants and increased reliability margins. Someone
figured out that a solar panel shouldn't be rated the same as a
nuclear plant, so that took a lot of "capacity" out of the markets,
causing auctions to go up.
I didn't investigate MISO. Also, MISO isn't as well developed as PJM,
so maybe the problems are worse there. MISO does have a 10 - 15 year
plan to put in a bunch of 765 kV and 345 kV routes to fix a bunch of
their problems. It'll connect with the PJM 765 kV that's up here and
the other would be in Indiana.
Of all of the increases in ComEd bills, datacenters themselves are
less than 5% of the bill, likely less than 2%.
--
Mike Hammett
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Jones" <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>
To: "AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group" <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>
Sent: Monday, November 24, 2025 3:35:01 PM
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Data Center Article Series
no, they pay to the substation, not to the production, huge
difference. There is no way around it that data centers in their
current state are a scourge. And should be taxed as such. Downstream
costs will never be offset by their tax revenues, in large part
because they're not documented.
I would love to see a legitimate study of the downstream costs of
datacenters service by ameren alone.
The massive hikes this summer resulted in a ton of short term loans
being taken by consumers to cover the unanticipated data center hikes.
Id be curious to see how much interest expense alone resulted
downstream. The spike in costs wasnt solely a result of the data
centers, there was the heat wave, but ameren sold something in bulk
that they didnt have in bulk... seems in a regulated industry that
should be illegal. I cant sell you 10 keys of blow if i dont have 10
keys of blow, except in this case i still sell you 10 keys at the kilo
rate, but then just charge all my rackheads 3x as much to cover
getting more blow for them. If ameren were a drug dealer, theyd be
hanging upside down naked on a bridge with their pecker in their mouth.
I cant say id really stop luigi from talking to ameren execs about this
On Mon, Nov 24, 2025 at 3:18 PM Mike Hammett < [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> > wrote:
They do pay for their own grid improvements, be it transmission lines,
substations, etc.
--
Mike Hammett
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Jones" < [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> >
To: "AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group" < [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> >
Sent: Monday, November 24, 2025 3:09:08 PM
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Data Center Article Series
If a fat guys eats everything at an all you eat buffet every day and
the price of the buffet goes up because of the ingredient replacement
costs, everybody else is paying for the fat guy to eat a fat guys
portion. His bulk discount gets everybody elses pocketbook lighter.
Data centers should be mandated to fund their own consumption back to
the grid Then again I feel the Same about owners of EV charging
stations, they should have an annual tax commensurate to their
consumption to fund the delivery of their excess
On Mon, Nov 24, 2025 at 2:47 PM Mike Hammett < [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> > wrote:
I'm not sure it works that way, though, at least now up here in
Illinois PJM. I don't remember if it's the PJM or the Illinois part.
--
Mike Hammett
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Jones" < [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> >
To: "AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group" < [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> >
Sent: Monday, November 24, 2025 2:08:41 PM
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Data Center Article Series
I implied it
Ameren in particular
They give datacenters bulk purchase discounts, and passed it on to the
consumers in great scale this year.
durp, sorry, they didnt win the bid on bulk purchase or some nonsense
like that
Its no different then us selling bulk DIA circuits at discounted rates
to a large client, then passing our increased upstream cost on to the
residential customers
On Mon, Nov 24, 2025 at 1:47 PM Josh Luthman <
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote:
I didn't say anything about data centers, nor did Steve.
On Mon, Nov 24, 2025 at 2:31 PM Mike Hammett < [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> > wrote:
In the PJM region, that had very little to do with data centers, as I
outline in my article.
--
Mike Hammett
----- Original Message -----
From: "Josh Luthman" < [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> >
To: "AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group" < [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> >
Sent: Monday, November 24, 2025 1:16:54 PM
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Data Center Article Series
The typical residential electric bill is monstrously more expensive,
however, they aren't earning anything other than what they had before:
pitiful customer service, no options for alternatives, and general
distaste for their provider option.
On Mon, Nov 24, 2025 at 2:04 PM Mike Hammett < [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> > wrote:
Could you restate that?
--
Mike Hammett
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Jones" < [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> >
To: "AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group" < [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> >
Sent: Saturday, November 22, 2025 2:38:01 PM
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Data Center Article Series
i love all the gain the citizens are buying on their utility bills
On Fri, Nov 21, 2025 at 9:03 PM Mike Hammett < [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> > wrote:
I've been putting together some articles to debunk the massive amount
of datacenter FUD and misinformation.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-data-centers-actually-mean-northern-illinois-mike-hammett-gcw1c
<https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-data-centers-actually-mean-northern-illinois-mike-hammett-gcw1c>
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/electricity-addendum-why-electric-bills-really-rose-what-mike-hammett-funxc?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_pulse_read%3B%2BQTxyzShQlymoMHIijY2xQ%3D%3D
<https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/electricity-addendum-why-electric-bills-really-rose-what-mike-hammett-funxc?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_pulse_read%3B%2BQTxyzShQlymoMHIijY2xQ%3D%3D>
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/addendum-property-values-eav-growth-taxes-dekalb-county-mike-hammett-tpbsc?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_pulse_read%3B%2BQTxyzShQlymoMHIijY2xQ%3D%3D
<https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/addendum-property-values-eav-growth-taxes-dekalb-county-mike-hammett-tpbsc?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_pulse_read%3B%2BQTxyzShQlymoMHIijY2xQ%3D%3D>
--
Mike Hammett
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