Overview
- Pennsylvania utility regulators advanced a model tariff that speeds grid hookups for very large users while adding fees, cost‑recovery rules, and payments into low‑income assistance to keep data‑center costs off household bills.
- That Pennsylvania guidance defines a large load as over 50 megawatts for one site or 100 megawatts in total, lets companies build needed upgrades themselves when feasible, and clarifies that utilities should recover new transmission and distribution costs tied to those customers.
- North Carolina lawmakers proposed a bill that would make big data centers pay cost‑based rates, cover grid upgrades, and generate at least 25% of their power on site with clean energy, with thresholds set at 40 megawatts or very high water use.
- Maine’s Legislature sustained Gov. Janet Mills’s veto of a temporary data‑center pause, allowing a Jay project at the former Androscoggin Mill to proceed as the governor forms an advisory council to limit rate and environmental impacts.
- Across states, regulators are shifting from case‑by‑case fights to formal tools like electric service agreements that assign bespoke generation and storage to data centers, new tariffs with exit fees and collateral, third‑party supply options where utilities fall short, and tighter reporting on energy and water use.