OpenAI says its Georgia data center will cut its power use when the grid is strained
A deal with Georgia Power covers up to 1,000 megawatts, about what 700,000 homes use, OpenAI says.
OpenAI, the San Francisco maker of ChatGPT, said Nov. 2 that its planned data center campus in Effingham County, Georgia, will turn down its electricity use when the local power grid is under strain. The company announced the plan in a post describing what it calls its Grid Protectors Program.
OpenAI says the campus has an agreement with the utility Georgia Power for up to 1,000 megawatts of “flexible demand response.” That means the campus would cut its power draw when asked, for example on extremely hot days when homes are running air conditioners. OpenAI says 1,000 megawatts is about the average use of 700,000 households.
Utilities already pay some big customers to cut use at peak times. The idea is to avoid building costly new power plants and lines just for a few hours of peak demand a year. OpenAI says the Georgia campus will be the first test, and that it will also pay the full cost of the grid equipment and service needed to serve the site.
Georgia Power projects about $950 million a year in customer savings starting in 2029 from its large-customer contracts, including this one, or at least $15 a month for a typical home using 1,000 kilowatt-hours, OpenAI says. OpenAI says it will seek similar deals at future campuses, as U.S. data center demand is projected to top 100 gigawatts by 2030.