EPRI (Electric Power Research Institute) has organised a consortium dedicated to improving electrical power reliability for the new digital economy. Participants in the new venture, which has been named the Consortium for Electric Infrastructure to Support a Digital Society, include power providers and a broad spectrum of ‘electric reliability stakeholders’. This is the second stage of a plan initiated early in 2000 which brought together more than 20 utilities as well as trade associations to make improvements in utility T & D. Unprotected microprocessors may fail even if power is interrupted for a fraction of a second, and delivered power is far more unreliable than that – so measures applied both to the grid and to customers premises will be necessary.
The USA reputedly uses up 13 per cent of its electricity on internet related activity. In the UK, Guardian IT Group, which is constructing Europe’s largest website hosting centre (aka ‘internet hotel’) has decided sidestep London’s supply problems by building its own 24 MW plant at its Heathrow site because Scottish and Southern cannot guarantee a supply. US problems are worse – some web hotels in California have built their own plant following a shortage of electricity so acute that the state has outlawed the use of Christmas lights before 7 pm.