Overview
- An independent monitor reported that data‑center load accounted for $9.3 billion, or 63%, of PJM’s 2025–26 capacity costs as auction totals jumped from $2.2 billion for 2024–25 to $16.1 billion in the latest round.
- Senate Democrats led by Ed Markey asked FERC to prevent “unjust or unreasonable” increases, including scrutinizing cost allocation for transmission built to serve data centers and investigating operators whose rates favor large loads.
- Regulators and states are tightening forecast vetting as watchdogs warn of speculative or duplicative data‑center plans; Texas now requires developers to disclose parallel requests and show financial commitment, and a FERC commissioner sought better viability data from grid operators.
- Consumers are seeing higher bills in data‑center hubs, with year‑over‑year rises of 13% in Virginia, 16% in Illinois, and 12% in Ohio, while BGE reported about $32 more per month and PECO cited wholesale costs driven primarily by data‑center demand.
- A DOE report found data centers used about 4.4% of U.S. electricity in 2023 and are projected to reach 6.7–12% by 2028; PJM has proposed at least $11 billion in upgrades, and Virginia’s JLARC warned the sector’s power needs will likely increase system costs for all customers even as sites pay assigned charges.