Lafarge: Data centers and manufacturers will pay for grid infrastructure upgrades
Pierre Lafarge · Making DERs work for load growth · Jan 9, 2025 · at 25:03
Sparkfund CEO Pierre Lafarge explains how surging demand for power from AI data centers and onshored manufacturing will be financed on the US grid.
0:00 / 0:17exact quote · 17.6s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“Yes, I think that high load customers like manufacturing and data center operators can and will be a really big part of this moment in grid history. They will pay in Much of the incremental cost because of how they value time to power and total availability of power.”
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 Pierre Lafarge
Lafarge: Doubling grid capacity is the baseline, not a high-end scenario
“Even if you haircut the forecast growth in data centers and manufacturing by 80 or 90%, you still double the grid. And something I think we need to say more as an industry is doubling the grid is not the high-end reference case here. It's not the sort of what …”
Lafarge: Most distributed capacity will be customer-sited with dual use
“Our view, or my view, is that it's more the later, the latter. That most of distributed Capacity will end up being customer cited and have some aspect of dual use, even if that dual use is, is primarily just a new way the grid functions.”
Lafarge: Vertically integrated utilities are best equipped to manage distributed capacity
“One of the reasons why utilities and particularly vertically integrated utilities are so well suited to this is that they are the grid operators that can see the whole darn grid at once transmission distribution and generation.”
Lafarge: EVs fell to third-biggest grid driver in just 24 months
“24 months ago, electric vehicles were the biggest driver of electrification growth, and now it's a distant third, and that happened stunningly quickly.”
Lafarge: Distributed capacity procurement extends century-old utility planning practices
“The first layer of a distributed capacity procurement is just asking a utility to be a utility, which is plan how much it needs to generate and move electricity where it needs it and what type of assets would do that and then go Buy them and put them into the …”
Lafarge: Urban space constraints force grid capacity onto customer sites
“The real reason that a distributed capacity procurement focuses more on customer cited assets Than just size format is actually a pretty pragmatic reason, which is in a lot of the places of the grid where you need the capacity, there just isn't space to put th…”