NEWS: Has Microsoft cracked the ratepayer protection code?

Last week, Microsoft filed a Ratepayer Protection Tariff with the Nevada Public Utilities Commission—and some energy pros are into it.

The details: It would 1) require large-load customers to pay the costs they cause and 2) create a public ledger tracking those dollars all the way from infrastructure planning to operation. The tariff also requires large-load customers to pay their fair share of “existing system costs that underpin safe and reliable service.”

The feedback: “It’s really good actually,” Travis Kavulla, Base Power head of policy, wrote on X. “This seems like a tariff where cost-shifting concerns are mitigated, and it achieves that while getting ‘speed to power.’” Energy entrepreneur Jigar Shah added that it reflects “a growing recognition that the era of socializing data center infrastructure costs onto residential ratepayers is over.”