The dirty secret behind Big Tech’s data center boom

The useful part

That is like a husband pledging not to beat his wife as his fist draws blood. The politicians who spent a year gaslighting the public about data centers' power use now acknowledge the problem and promise to cover grid upgrades. Even as they propose legislation and tout a nonbinding industry pledge, data centers are already costing consumers.

How it works

• Utilities and data center companies already bury infrastructure costs among a region's general power needs.
• Congress promise that data centers will not cost consumers a dime.
• The growing number and size of planned hyper-scale facilities will push electricity costs even higher.
• The bill establishes a federal standard that state regulators must consider but need not adopt.
• It would require large-load customers to cover the "full, incremental cost" of new or accelerated grid upgrades — not a full share of the existing system's embedded fixed costs.

What to take from it

A serious proposal would resemble Oklahoma's House Bill 3724, which stalled in committee this year. Monitoring Analytics, PJM's independent market monitor, <a href="https://www.monitoringanalytics.com/reports/PJM_State_of_the_Market/2026/2026q2-som-pjm.pdf" rel="noopener nore...

Details worth keeping

This week, the House passed the Ratepayer Protection Act (H.R. That limitation helps explain the industry's support. If adopted and enforced, the standard could protect ratepayers.