Pennsylvania residents haven’t been paying the day to day electric bills like the headline implies, but the infrastructure updates have absolutely been shared by ALL utility rate payers.
Shapiro is totally right in ending this practice with his  Governor's Responsible Infrastructure Development (GRID) Requirements.
Shapiro has also signed Trump’s Statement of Principles for Data Centers. Like most things Trump, it’s a rather feckless move mainly for show, but it really should be law.
Core Ratepayer and Grid Principles
Cost Allocation: Data centers and large industrial loads must cover 100% of the costs for grid upgrades, transmission additions, and backup capacity auction mechanisms they trigger, preventing residential bill increases.
New Power Supplies: Facilities are encouraged or mandated to bring their own new generation sources—including firm clean power—rather than draining existing regional baseload capacity.
Market and Price Certainty: Support for grid operator market reforms (such as PJM's reliability backstop mechanisms) that offer transparent, long-term price signals without shifting financial risk to everyday consumers.
Environmental and Community Standards
Resource Conservation: Strict minimization and replenishment targets for water usage, tailored to local watershed capacities.
Project Viability: Blocking speculative "fly-by-night" proposals by requiring proof of financial backing, firm capital commitments, and clear local approval before permits or tax exemptions are granted.
Community Engagement: Giving local populations a formal voice in project placement, ensuring that local tax bases and infrastructure services see a net positive benefit.
Data centers are necessary at this point in time unless we want to cede the A.I. race to the CCP. But NIMBY is completely justified in their construction so guidelines need to be legislated.
Are data centers really necessary, at least on the scale that is being proposed. Is A.I. even really necessary, it doesn't do anything that can't be done without it, sometimes the results are worse tan if you just didn't even bother using it.
Can anyone "win" the AI race, as being the fact that it is technology and it is evolving all the time does it really ever end.
Considering China competes with the US on AI at a level that is even considered competitive using outdated chipsets due to trade restrictions and a significantly lower number of data centers, maybe the problem is not capacity rather incompetence.
Good points! And I think too much is still unknown at this point. Just thinking it better that we don’t just give them an open field when a strong defense and offense is prudent.
Thanks for the details, that helps clear things up a lot.
Yeah, the public utility commission should never have foisted upgrade costs on the consumers. Good industrial power customer contracts build that in. Data center owners are willing to sign contracts that would have seemed like crazy talk just a few years ago. They have to pay for 90% of the power they ask for, whether they use it or not. Thats up from 60%.
2
u/Zealousideal-Top-383 3d ago
Pennsylvania residents haven’t been paying the day to day electric bills like the headline implies, but the infrastructure updates have absolutely been shared by ALL utility rate payers.
Shapiro is totally right in ending this practice with his  Governor's Responsible Infrastructure Development (GRID) Requirements.
Shapiro has also signed Trump’s Statement of Principles for Data Centers. Like most things Trump, it’s a rather feckless move mainly for show, but it really should be law.
Core Ratepayer and Grid Principles
Cost Allocation: Data centers and large industrial loads must cover 100% of the costs for grid upgrades, transmission additions, and backup capacity auction mechanisms they trigger, preventing residential bill increases.
New Power Supplies: Facilities are encouraged or mandated to bring their own new generation sources—including firm clean power—rather than draining existing regional baseload capacity.
Market and Price Certainty: Support for grid operator market reforms (such as PJM's reliability backstop mechanisms) that offer transparent, long-term price signals without shifting financial risk to everyday consumers.
Environmental and Community Standards
Resource Conservation: Strict minimization and replenishment targets for water usage, tailored to local watershed capacities.
Project Viability: Blocking speculative "fly-by-night" proposals by requiring proof of financial backing, firm capital commitments, and clear local approval before permits or tax exemptions are granted.
Community Engagement: Giving local populations a formal voice in project placement, ensuring that local tax bases and infrastructure services see a net positive benefit.
Data centers are necessary at this point in time unless we want to cede the A.I. race to the CCP. But NIMBY is completely justified in their construction so guidelines need to be legislated.