“If data centers provide less business to utility companies than anticipated, consumers may have to pay massive power bills as utility companies recoup billions in the cost of new infrastructure but have nothing to show for it,” the senators wrote.
Already Utah, Oregon and Ohio have passed legislation “creating a separate class of utility customers for data centers” that includes basic financial safeguards like upfront payments and longer contract periods, the senators noted, and Virginia in particular is considering a similar law.
The New York Times said at least one study suggested that data centers helped reduce electricity costs by spreading the cost of recent upgrades to more customers, but those results varied by state and could not account for future AI demand.
“It is unclear whether widespread, sustained weight growth will increase long-term average costs and prices,” the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researchers concluded. “In some cases, increased load growth could result in significant increases in retail prices in the near term.”
Until companies prove they are paying their fair share, senators expect electricity bills to continue rising, especially in vulnerable areas. Ari Pescow, director of the power law initiative at Harvard Law School’s Environmental and Energy Law Program, suggested in September that this would increase pressure on regulators to intervene.
“The utility business model is about spreading the cost of system expansion over everyone, because we all benefit from a reliable, robust power system,” Pesco said. “But when it’s a single consumer that’s using so much energy — basically the entire city’s — and when that new city is owned by the wealthiest corporations in the world, I think it’s time to look at the fundamental notions of utility regulation and make sure that these utilities are actually paying for all the infrastructure costs to connect them to the system and power them.”
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