“New Hampshire has passed a law exempting electricity providers who don’t connect to the grid from public-utility regulation, cutting red tape that can delay projects by years and opening the door to experimentation and innovation in the electricity sector,” reports The Doomslayer.
The Wall Street Journal adds:
The global race for artificial intelligence and the inability of the U.S. electricity sector to keep pace have state policymakers scratching their heads. Some respond by restricting data centers’ use of local grids; others put existing customers and taxpayers on the hook for investments to accommodate the new demand. The electricity sector is in a state of crisis.
New Hampshire recently approved an elegant solution: Let anyone build. In August Gov. Kelly Ayotte signed HB 672, which minimizes red tape for electricity providers that don’t connect to the existing grid, thus bringing more competition, speed and innovation to the state….Off-grid electricity providers in New Hampshire will no longer be subject to public-utility regulation. This means they are free to develop projects, operate or enter into commercial agreements without going hat in hand to state bureaucrats….
Recent analysis suggests regulatory hurdles can add anywhere from one to five years to projects.
Welcoming new suppliers means inviting more people with ideas for tackling electricity challenges. Picture a local utility generating power via gas, solar or even a small modular nuclear reactor and delivering it directly to customers, including data centers and other industrial facilities. New suppliers can start projects unencumbered by decades of heavily regulated business practices. Off-grid suppliers can consider innovation in all aspects of the business, beyond the usual choice of generation types.
The value of such innovations could be great. Consider the example of FedEx. Its revolutionary breakthrough wasn’t about new types of planes or trucks but the novel ways the company used those assets.
Artificial intelligence recently created new antibiotics that killed drug-resistant gonorrhea and MRSA.
Some robots using artificial intelligence can identify and kill 100,000 weeds per hour.
Artificial intelligence is detecting cases of prostate cancer and breast cancer that radiologists overlook.
Artificial intelligence is also being used to generate highly-effective antibodies to fight disease.
Scientists are using artificial intelligence to identify the trillions of viruses that live within human beings.
Robots with artificial intelligence are spreading on Japanese farms.
