To enable public power utilities to continue meeting rising demand from data centers and maintain reliable, affordable service for their existing customers, Congress must resist adopting one-size-fits-all policies for data centers, APPA said in an April 28 letter to lawmakers in advance of a hearing held by the Energy & Commerce Committee’s Energy Subcommittee on policies related to large loads and data centers.
Congress has an opportunity to provide “appropriate flexibility, enact technology-neutral permitting reform, create opportunities for federal technical assistance in load forecasting and transmission technologies, and remove regulatory burdens, including private use rules, to help public power utilities as they work to provide reliable and affordable power to your constituents,” APPA said in the letter.
Public power utilities “have a unique role to play in serving data centers. Because public power utilities are community-owned and locally governed, support from local leaders for new data centers can help alleviate local barriers to deployment,” APPA went on to say.
In addition to federal permitting, data center developers also need to navigate local siting and permitting requirements, APPA went on to say.
“As instrumentalities of state and local governments, public power utilities can participate in whole-of-government efforts to enable data centers to successfully—and at the necessary speed—locate in communities seeking to attract such investment.”
APPA said it agrees with the committee “that it is imperative to find solutions that will allow public power utilities to build the grid and generation infrastructure needed to serve data centers in a manner that does not negatively impact grid reliability or the affordability of electricity for existing public power customers.”
The letter also addressed the following topics:
• Reliability
• Federal Permitting
• Technical Assistance/Load Forecasting
• Protecting Customers
• Transmission/Advanced Transmission Technologies
• Tax and Regulatory Challenges
