Utilities keep information about energy usage from data centers in their region; They use that information to forecast growth. But data centers will often shop for individual utilities, which experts say, causes utilities to double count projects and forecast “phantom” development — data centers that will never be built in their area. The CEO of retail power company, Vistara, said during its first quarter earnings call last year that utilities could increase power demand by three to five times what is actually needed.
In December, EIA Administrator Tristan Abbey said at a roundtable that he expected the EIA “is going to be an essential player in providing objective data and analysis to policymakers” regarding data centers. The agency announced Wednesday that it will conduct a voluntary pilot program to collect energy consumption information from nearly 200 companies that operate data centers in Texas, Washington and Virginia, including “energy sources, power consumption, site characteristics, server metrics and cooling systems.”
While the senators praise the EIA pilot program, their letter includes several questions about how the agency plans to move forward with more data collection, such as whether energy surveys will be mandatory and whether EIA will collect information on behind-the-meter electricity. Senators say this information will be especially important to ensure that Big Tech companies, which signed the agreement at the White House earlier this month that promised consumers would not bear the costs of data center electricity use, will stick to their promises.
“Without this data, policymakers, utility companies, and local communities are operating in the dark,” the senators write.
The EIA mandates that other industries, including oil and gas and manufacturing, provide regular data to the agency; Hawley and Warren claim that EIA should be able to collect the same information from data centers under the same provision. Pesco says the provision is so broad that it could certainly be interpreted to include data centers.
The letter comes amid widespread concern in Washington and across the country over data center growth. On Wednesday, Senator Bernie Sanders introduced a bill that would place a national moratorium on data center construction and development until AI security legislation is passed. The same day, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin introduced a bill to require data centers to disclose their energy and water usage. And state legislatures have introduced hundreds of data center bills, with at least a dozen states considering banning construction altogether.
This story originally appeared on Wired.com.
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