Utility customers in seven PJM states paid $4.4B last year for transmission upgrades tied to new data centers, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. (UCS)
The gap: Local transmission projects for data centers fall into a regulatory blind spot, meaning costs are spread across all customers instead of charged to the companies driving the need.
The scale: 150+ projects were approved from 2022–24 in Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia, with nearly half the costs in Virginia, the world’s largest data center hub.
The fix: UCS wants FERC and state regulators to assign costs directly to data centers or a new customer class, track those costs through rate cases, and stop other ratepayers from subsidizing corporate expansion.