News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Three Mile Island nuclear plant restart in Microsoft AI power deal. Parent comment

Re:Three Mile Island nuclear plant restart in Microsoft AI p... by nradov on Friday September 20, 2024 @02:20PM (#41604338)
Scheduling loads based on energy spot price tends to wreck the economics of manufacturing. If you have to shut down when energy prices spike then you're still paying fixed expenses for PP&E plus at least some labor. It's tough to finance that.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Three Mile Island nuclear plant restart in Microsoft AI p... by berkes on Tuesday September 24, 2024 @11:57AM (#41637956)
Depends a bit on the "manufactoring". It's not "black"-"white". While it's certainly true for e.g. a brewery or a bike-factory-line, it's less so for aluminum, or chemicals. And even less so for systems like a freezer.

A friend who makes juices and dried fruits on medium scale, plans his production ahead based on the spot pricing: steaming or deep-freezing can be postponed for days, apparently; I helped him with some dashboards and integrations of the pricing-APIs for this.

What I'm trying to say is: yes, a lot of industry won't be able to profit much from these markets. But many can, if they are just willing to change their current ways a little. Not all: many.

[ Parent | on HN ]