Norris: Crypto mining operations can drop power to zero within minutes
Tyler Norris · The potential for flexible data centers · Mar 27, 2025 · at 22:00
Energy researcher Tyler Norris discusses flexible computational loads and how different data center workloads respond to grid demand spikes.
0:00 / 0:12exact quote · 12.1s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“The computational loads that are most flexible are, you know, the crypto mining operations. And they're now, you know, some of the most flexible loads On the entire power system, and they can go from, you know, like max draw to zero and, you know, one minute or a handful of minutes.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Tyler Norris
Norris: 0.5% data center curtailment unlocks 98 gigawatts of capacity
“At 0.5% flexibility or curtailment of the new data center load, you could add up to 98 gigawatts of new data centers across the U.S. And at 0.25% curtailment of the new load, you could add 76 gigawatts.”
Norris: Proactive transmission planning matters even more than interconnection queue reform
“The biggest Additional piece is improving the proactive transmission planning process and not relying as much on the interconnection process.”
Norris: AI data centers could drive 44% of US electricity load growth
“Yeah, I think what really opened our eyes were some of these forecasts suggesting that AI specialized data centers are going to be likely the single largest driver of U.S. Electricity load growth for the next five to seven years, with some numbers suggesting a…”
Norris: Roughly half of all US generation and transmission is unused
“And so what that basically means is that in any given hour,
On average, approximately half of all generation and transmission infrastructure is unused on average in the U.S., and it's actually worse than that because you're not counting for all the reserve ma…”
Norris: Faster interconnection is the key value proposition for flexible data centers
“What would really present a value proposition for the hyperscalers and the large co-location data centers would be if you can actually interconnect them to the grid more quickly if they're able to offer this flexibility.”
Norris: Data center curtailment requires only partial load reduction in most hours
“When we ran the numbers, so like at that, that 0.25% load curtailment rate on average, we found that the number of hours in which Curtailment would be required. Some amount of curtailment would be 85 hours, but in 73 of those 85 hours, at least 50% of the new …”