Why gas power plants became the first card to play in the AI power crunch
US data center operators want large amounts of electricity within 2–3 years, but a new transmission connection takes 5 years on average. So building a large power plant first and attaching a data center next to it has become effectively the only solution, and this is presented as the background to a 6.3 GW-class combined-cycle gas power plant in Texas being floated as Korea's first investment project in the US. It is a structure in which two sets of interests mesh: one side needs a track record for power-generation gas turbines, which Korea localized as only the fifth country in the world to do so yet had nowhere to sell, and the other needs to get electricity fast. However, the Texas power market has no capacity payments, so the plant must keep winning on price for all 20 years, and the mismatch between a power plant's 20–60-year life and an AI server's 5–10 years is cited as the biggest risk.
Key points
- Gas-fired power in Texas costs about ₩60 per kWh, versus about ₩150 wholesale and about ₩180 retail in Korea, a wide gap
- The wait for a new transmission connection averages 5 years, while data centers demand a build time of 2–3 years
- Big Tech couldn't team up with nuclear not over price but over the guarantee period — nuclear needs 40 years, while buyers can commit to 20 at most
- If power from the plant costs ₩100, a power service that includes control to absorb sudden load swings fetches ₩200–300
This is a note: my own write-up after reading several sources. It has no source link; events checked against a source are kept as records.