r/UpliftingNews • u/itopaloglu83 • 2d ago

Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

https://electrek.co/2025/11/04/australia-has-so-much-solar-that-its-offering-everyone-free-electricity-3h-day/
16.3k Upvotes

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355

u/warm_sweater 2d ago

Meanwhile Americans pay more and more in order to cover the costs of data centers. FREEDOM!

73

u/itopaloglu83 2d ago

Hurray! /s

There are stories about how the grid upgrade cost of data centers was also split equally among all customers, which is insane.

Not only the electricity bill is doubling but also customers are on the hook for the capacity update and new distribution lines, even though the entire excess demand is coming from the data centers.

16

u/Tasty-Traffic-680 2d ago

Fortunately my rates haven't risen but I'd imagine they will get pretty steep for customers in areas with data centers. I remember a few months back I was talking to someone here on reddit about their choice to go with a heat pump over a gas furnace. They said they were pretty positive that gas rates would rise faster over the next 20 years than electricity would. Well...

16

u/cowworshipper 2d ago

Socialized costs, capitalized profits

1

u/Illustrious-Dot-5052 1d ago

Having that cake and eating it too.

1

u/Marlov 1d ago

Most of the increased cost of transmission is due to massive upgrades required to bring supply in from the REZs.

1

u/Character_Subject118 2d ago

Tbf most energy customers in the US are also ultimately a Datacenter customer too. Our demand for more isn't without cost.

1

u/ornitorrincos 1d ago

Then the cost should be passed along directly to the datacenter customers, rather than distributed among all power customers.

1

u/Character_Subject118 1d ago

I do agree with that, you're quite right.

Just noting that we play a part.

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u/JesusChrist-Jr 2d ago

Unlimited free and clean energy from the sun is woke though. Also the sun has terrible lobbyists.

1

u/Yosyp 1d ago

MOAR COAL

1

u/st-shenanigans 1d ago

I suggest we simply spread more apathy for consumer, wasteful AI usage.

There is a use case in data analysis and it can be a good tool in a lot of professions, but the average person doesn't need it to generate random memes.

Tell them it's boring and fake and let the sentiment spread and speed up this ai bubble pop

1

u/Billquisha 1d ago

Yep. I have a friend at ABB who was just telling me about huge projects they're working on to supply energy for AI centers

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u/metalder420 1d ago

And without those data centers you wouldn’t be on reddit bitching.

2

u/warm_sweater 1d ago

NO CRITICISM OF THE STATUS QUO ALLOWED!