Residential ratepayers in your district are being set up to subsidize massive data centers, and I want to know what you're doing to stop it. The PJM market monitor — covering 14 mid-Atlantic and Midwest states — found that data center power demand is driving $23 billion in customer price increases expected to last through at least 2028. That bill is landing on ordinary households.
Here's the mechanism: cost allocation rules use "coincident peak demand" to determine who pays for grid infrastructure. Data centers use automated systems to cut their consumption during peak periods, dodging those costs entirely — the same trick cryptocurrency miners already pulled in Texas. Residential customers can't do that. So data centers consume enormous amounts of electricity, avoid peak-related charges, and the remaining costs get spread to everyone else. No one in these regulatory proceedings is specifically fighting for residential customers — consumer advocate offices are legally required to represent all customers equally, which means they can't push back on cost-shifting to households.
This needs a legislative fix. Require that cost allocation methodologies account for total consumption, not just peak avoidance. Fund dedicated residential ratepayer representation in utility proceedings. And put oversight on infrastructure investments tied to data centers that may never get built — because if those projects fall through, households absorb the stranded costs. I pay my electric bill every month. I expect the rules to be fair.
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