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Tech Alliance’s Policy Matters conference, held Monday at Seattle’s Bell Harbor Conference Center. A panel addressing AI and power, from left: Greg Cullen of Energy Northwest, Josh Jacobs of Puget Sound Energy, Jessie Barton from Helion, and Chris Green from the Pacific Northwest Hydrogen Association. (Geekwire Photo / Lisa Stiffler)
Washington state — a region once blessed with an overabundance of clean, affordable power thanks to its hydroelectric dams — can no longer make that claim.
Energy use is surging with power increasingly needed for data centers operated by tech giant “hyperscalers,” as well as for industrial manufacturing and the increased electrification of transportation and other sectors.
But carbon-free alternatives for round-the-clock power can’t keep up.
Utilities are pursuing clean alternatives such as advanced nuclear, green hydrogen, long duration storage and other technologies, said Josh Jacobs, Puget Sound Energy’s vice president of clean energy strategy and planning. But those solutions “are five to 10 years down the road before we’ll see anything commercial at scale.”
“We are short today,” he said. “The hyperscalers are growing today. They’re gobbling up available hydro [power] and carbon-emitting resources that are on the market today.”
Jacobs spoke Monday on an energy-focused panel at the Tech Alliance’s Policy Matters conference addressing the AI revolution. The energy story was grim.
“This is a very, very significant challenge, and we don’t yet have an answer, and that’s why we’re pursuing so many different types of technologies,” said Greg Cullen, vice president of energy services and development for Energy Northwest, an agency providing power to utilities.
Cullen said there are promising partnerships to help address the problem, including a deal announced last month in which Amazon is funding the feasibility phase for a proposed nuclear facility in central Washington. Amazon will have the right to purchase electricity from the 320 megawatt plant.
Amazon, Microsoft and Google are building power-hungry data centers around the globe to meet AI computing demands. In the past year, they’ve all signed deals to purchase or develop nuclear power, which is an attractive option because it doesn’t produce carbon emissions and can operate 24/7, unlike wind and solar power that is available intermittently.
The scale of the energy challenge is so significant, that Microsoft has also gone with a longshot, signing an agreement to purchase power from Seattle-area fusion company Helion — provided the company overcomes technical hurdles and can deliver the juice.
“We need to have a new source of power on the grid in order to answer the demands that are coming from both AI, but then all of the other infrastructure and energy needs on the grid,” said Jessie Barton, Helion’s communications director and a third panelist.
While none of the world’s fusion companies has been able to generate power, Barton asserted that “we are much closer than we ever have been to getting fusion on the grid. So I think it’s crucial that we’re having this conversation right now.”
Chris Green, president of Pacific Northwest Hydrogen Association, a government-supported hydrogen innovation hub, was the fourth panelist. Noel Schulz, director of Washington State University Tri-Cities Institute for Northwest Energy Futures (INEF), moderated the conversation. The event was held at Seattle’s Bell Harbor Conference Center.
The panelists also emphasized the need to modernize and improve grid operations, which is how energy moves from the site of production to its end use. An essential step to meeting demand is streamlining and expediting the permitting and siting process for both grid transmission lines and additional energy sources, the panelists agreed.
Companies such as the tech giants have capital to spend on clean energy deployments, Green said, but they need to move fast.
“We have to be a lot more innovative about how we move things through the process,” he said. “How do we get these projects online?”
