Amid a nationwide outcry over data centers, OpenAI said on Monday it would reduce power use at its new data center campus when the grid is strained.
The artificial intelligence giant, run by Sam Altman, said it plans to shut down power to its data center site in Effingham County, Georgia — where locals protested the $30 billion project over the summer — during extreme weather or emergencies.
According to OpenAI, the massive data center campus outside Savannah is expected to require 3.2 gigawatts of power. Expected to launch in 2028.
The company said that under its “Grid Protector Program,” OpenAI will curtail up to 1 gigawatt of electricity, enough to power about 700,000 homes, to help stabilize local power grids as needed.
“Our goal is to make this flexibility a core part of how we build and operate the campus of the future,” OpenAI said in a statement.
“That means designing facilities to use less electricity when needed and working with utilities to come to an agreement on reducing demand, reducing speed and reducing time.”
OpenAI also said it will “work with grid operators to provide power through on-site generation or storage, and use batteries and power controls to smooth changes in demand.”
Georgia Power appears to welcome the policy.
“We thank the OpenAI team for their leadership and thoughtfulness as they prepare to bring significant investment and cutting-edge technology to Georgia,” said Aaron Mitchell, the utility’s senior vice president.
“At Georgia Power, we work every day to ensure that growth in data centers and other large energy users delivers value to our customers through higher reliability and lower prices,” Mitchell said in a July statement.
Effingham County is the only data center campus OpenAI plans to launch on its own so far. According to data center research platform Baxtel, the company operates 28 data center facilities across the country. It has also partnered with Oracle in Wisconsin to build a campus.
Reuters noted that companies, federal agencies and state leaders have been working hard to find ways to make data centers more flexible. A Duke University study found that changing the way centers use electricity could save $40 billion to $150 billion in capital investment over the next 10 years.
“Demand response can significantly mitigate peak impacts,” Alexander Kheder, an analyst at multinational research firm BMI, told Reuters. “But scaling up curtailment protocols across hundreds of new facilities will require significant capital expenditures and a coordinated policy framework.”
Nonetheless, public perception of data centers has deteriorated.
A May Gallup poll found that people would rather see nuclear power plants built in their communities than data centers, with a whopping 71 percent of Americans opposed to the latter.