A new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists says utilities in the PJM region have quietly billed $4.3B+ in transmission costs for data centers to ordinary customers—with billions more on the way. (UCS)
Just 5% of projects required data centers to pay their own connection costs, according to UCS. The other 95% were passed to consumers through general transmission charges.
Why? Under current rules, the cost of high-voltage transmission lines built to connect massive data centers is spread across all ratepayers—instead of being charged to the companies driving the demand.
UCS is calling on FERC and state regulators to close this loophole by tracking and assigning transmission costs to the customers who cause them.