About the Author: Douglas Brady is President of Huntsman Building Solutions (HBS) and serves on the Board of Directors for the Institute for the Building Envelope (IBE).
Read the full op-ed here.
While data centers have the potential to transform our society, they come at a price, particularly in the form of rising utility bills for families living near these fast-growing information hubs.
Data centers are a critical component needed to power the new age of artificial intelligence and cloud computing we’re experiencing now. These enormous structures are springing up across the country as fast as they can be built, largely in suburban areas surrounded by homes that have been around for decades.
Operating 24/7, these data centers also require a massive amount of energy to operate. Global risk firm DNV recently reported that AI data centers may demand 10 times more power over the next five years than they do now, and that by 2040, U.S. and Canadian data centers will account for roughly one-sixth of all electricity use. Accounting for this sudden increase in electrical demand is an issue that needs to be considered by lawmakers and regulators as we enter this new technological era.
It would be fair to assume that data centers are paying for the utilities they use, but that is not always the case. Utilities are passing these costs through to ratepayers, pushing household bills up even when usage stays flat. In Columbus, Ohio, residents saw a $20-$27 monthly spike in their utility bills this summer, largely attributed to a surge in data centers, which accounted for three-quarters of the overall increase in electrical demand for the area. In Phoenix, Arizona, the local utility company proposed a 14% increase in utility rates, partly due to the rising demand placed on the grid by these centers.
Lawmakers and regulators are looking at ways to protect homeowners from experiencing drastic increases to their monthly utility bills. In Virginia, one of the state’s largest utility companies proposed a new rate for high-energy users, including data centers, and in Georgia, lawmakers are introducing legislation aimed at shielding homeowners from data center-driven hikes.
As the regulatory groundwork surrounding data centers continues to be deliberated, homeowners can take proactive steps to hedge against rising utility rates by looking at any inefficiencies in their homes that may be contributing to unneeded energy waste in the first place. This means assessing your home’s building envelope, or in other words, looking at the separation between the outdoor environment and your indoor space to ensure you are maximizing the energy used to keep your home comfortable year-round. Strengthening your home’s building envelope lowers monthly bills and cushions against future increases.
While energy efficient appliances, heat pumps, and window/door upgrades are just some of the ways to achieve a stronger building envelope, it’s just as important to look at products you can’t see – namely, ways to insulate and air seal your home.
Keeping conditioned air where it belongs (inside) is paramount to ensuring your home is maximizing the energy needed to keep your home comfortable. While insulation helps to maintain a controlled temperature inside, there may be small crevices and holes where conditioned air may be escaping, unbeknownst to the homeowner. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, air leaks can waste up to 40% of the energy used to heat and cool a typical home. This may as well be “money just flying out of your house.”
Installing insulation without air sealing is like wearing a wool sweater on a windy day, according to Keith A. Simon of Salas O’Brien, an engineering firm. “The wind just cuts right through you and you’re freezing cold,” said Simon. “You have plenty of insulation, but it’s not airtight, and so it doesn’t work.”
There are plenty of materials that insulate, but only spray foam insulates AND air seals, ensuring that conditioned air doesn’t escape, reducing energy use and saving you money in the process. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), these upgrades can help save homeowners 15% on their heating and cooling bills.
As data centers become more of a fixture, homeowners can act now to ensure their home’s building envelope is performing at its best. To keep power affordable as AI grows, lawmakers, regulators, and homeowners should look to promote better home-building and retrofit practices that cut the monthly cost of comfort for every family.