Pennsylvania House Panel Advances Bills to Address Rising Electricity Costs and Data Center Impact
The Pennsylvania House Energy Committee has advanced three bills aimed at mitigating rising electricity costs for consumers, which have seen increases of up to 20% over two years. These increases are attributed to forecasted growth in demand, particularly from data centers. Data centers, large facilities housing thousands of computers for AI, streaming, and e-commerce, can consume as much power as a small city. One key bill, House Bill 2828, introduced by Chairperson Elizabeth Fiedler (D-Philadelphia), seeks to mandate that data center builders bear the additional costs utilities incur to upgrade infrastructure to serve them, rather than passing these costs to residents. This bill would require electric utilities to adopt a model rate structure from the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission that assigns infrastructure costs to large electricity consumers. It also mandates that data centers curtail electricity use during peak demand periods unless they have sufficient backup power, with backup generators r...
