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Sen. Hester seeks registry and cost protections as data center growth strains grid
Summary
Sen. Hester introduced SB 992 to require registration of very large electricity customers, improve planning visibility and ensure capacity/curtailment costs follow the customer creating new demand; PSC, Office of People's Counsel and industry groups testified during a lengthy stakeholder session.
Senator Hester told the committee that Maryland must fix how very large electricity customers — commonly data centers — are planned for and paid for, asking lawmakers to back SB 992 to improve transparency, align costs with responsible customers, and lower the threshold that triggers the large‑load rules from 100 MW to 25 MW.
"Developers may submit multiple interconnection requests across different locations when deciding where to build," Sen. Hester said, arguing speculative requests "can inflate demand forecasts" and lead regulators to procure unnecessary capacity. The bill would require a publicly available registry of large load planning information, give the Public Service Commission authority to set registration timing and data requirements, and direct that certain capacity and curtailment costs be allocated to the customers creating the demand rather than all ratepayers.
The Maryland Public Service Commission's Ben Baker told the committee the commission "support[s] this idea of the large load registry very much" and stressed the registry would help improve forecasting and mitigate rate impacts. The Office of People's Counsel urged protections that would allocate special capacity procurement costs to the responsible large loads and recommended amendments requiring binding financial commitments before utilities report loads to PJM. Industry witnesses supported amendments to permit behind‑the‑meter on‑site power and proposed a "bring your own power" amendment that would avoid penalizing on‑site clean power under the state's building energy performance standards.
Stakeholder testimony focused on four negotiation areas still under discussion: exact timing of registration to respect confidentiality and contracting, the level of financial commitment required for reporting, how the PSC would aggregate and protect sensitive data, and whether demand response or on‑site generation should be incentivized. The hearing closed with a request to continue working on technical amendments between sponsor, agencies and industry.
