SENATE BILLS WOULD SEEK TO PROTECT CONSUMERS FROM DATA CENTER COSTS

Senator Lisa Boscola of Lehigh County says she will introduce a package of six bills aimed at protecting consumers from damages from large-load electricity users such as data centers.  Boscola says the data center projects being built around the commonwealth “bring economic opportunity, but they also create significant pressures on our electric grid, local water systems, and community infrastructure.”  Her bills are designed to prevent the costs of serving the centers from being shifted upon residential consumers.

You can read about the bills by visiting this story on our website. Boscola says her bills “give municipalities and the PUC the tools they need to manage reliability, noise, land use, and water impacts.”

THE BILLS:  

• Data Center Cost Responsibility Act. Amends the Public Utility Code to prohibit utilities from charging residential or small business customers for grid upgrades caused by large data centers and requires PUC approval of all large-load service agreements.
• Grid Impact Fee and Customer Credit Act. Creates a per MWh impact fee on large data centers, returned as bill credits to customers within the affected electric distribution grid-zone.
• Priority Power Act. Gives the PUC explicit authority to delay or phase in service to large new loads when immediate service would threaten reliability or impose unreasonable costs on other customers.
• Data Center Demand Response and Flexible Load Act. Requires large data centers to participate in PUC-approved demand response programs or demonstrate equivalent onsite resources.
• Municipal Protections for Data Center Development Act. Amends the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code (MPC) to strengthen local authority over large data center siting. Requires disclosure of projected water use and infrastructure impacts, allows municipalities to consider water capacity and affordability during review, classifies large data centers as industrial uses, authorizes enforceable noise standards including low-frequency sound, and confirms municipal authority to impose setbacks, buffering, visual mitigation, and site-specific conditions.
• Excess Generation Cost Protection Act. Ensures the PUC prevents utilities from passing above-market costs onto ratepayers when purchasing excess generation from co-located data center generators which produce excess electricity that is sold back to the grid.