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Council urges state, federal action so developers—not residents—bear grid-upgrade costs
Summary
The Common Council unanimously passed a resolution asking lawmakers to prevent utilities from passing costs of enhanced electric infrastructure for data centers and other large users on to residential and small-business ratepayers.
Dr. Cora introduced a resolution urging state and federal lawmakers to require developers and large energy users to pay for enhanced electric infrastructure rather than shifting transmission and pole-replacement costs to customers. He framed the issue around onshoring of manufacturing and data centers and said regional utilities have created affiliates (Genco) to move costs to heavy-load customers but some indirect costs still flow to the public.
"AI will improve productivity ... but it will also cause some disruption," Dr. Cora said, explaining the motivation for the resolution and asking the council to support legislative action at higher levels of government. During public comment Savannah Lyle told the council residents had been assured that the Project Maize/Google buildout would not increase water or energy costs and asked whether those protections were written into agreements.
Council members voiced support and several asked staff to clarify what Genco is and whether existing arrangements already shield residential ratepayers. Councilwoman Moldenhauer explained that Genco is a NIPSCO affiliate structured to isolate heavy-load costs and said customers in the region were slated to receive bill credits from the program; the resolution passed 9-0.
