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Data centers singled out as a central driver of price spikes; advocates push 'pay your way' rules
Summary
Witnesses at a Jan. 26 hearing said data centers and other large loads are materially increasing capacity and transmission costs. Consumer advocates urged statutory rules to require new large users to pay infrastructure and universal-service costs; industry and PJM proposed model tariffs and procurement fixes instead.
Data centers were a focal point of the hearing as multiple witnesses linked growing hyperscaler load to higher wholesale and capacity prices and to planned transmission buildouts.
PJM's Asim Haque told lawmakers that rapid load growth from data centers is tightening the supply-demand balance and contributing to higher prices, and he described recent PJM board decisions to strengthen load forecasting and adopt a reliability backstop procurement. PJM said operational steps could include prioritizing non‑residential load to move to backup…
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