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As electric bills rise, evidence mounts that data centers share blame. States feel pressure to act


Amid rising electric bills, states are under pressure to insulate regular household and business ratepayers from the costs of feeding Big Tech’s energy-hungry data centers.

Meanwhile, Monitoring Analytics, the independent market watchdog for the mid-Atlantic grid, produced research in June showing that 70% — or $9.3 billion — of last year’s increased electricity cost was the result of data center demand. Last year, five governors led by Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro began pushing back against power prices set by the mid-Atlantic grid operator, PJM Interconnection, after that amount spiked nearly sevenfold. But, he said, state law doesn’t force large power users like data centers to publicly reveal their electric usage, so pinning down whether they’re paying their fair share of transmission costs “will be a challenge.”

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