With the rapid growth in data centers, federal policymakers have been focused on how to make sure that adding large data centers to the electric system does not increase electricity bills for other customers. Recently, a bipartisan group of senators introduced an energy permitting reform bill, the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (BAAJA), which would be a major shift in the current paradigm for transmission pricing policies.

BAAJA would require electric utilities to charge data centers more for transmission service and use those extra costs to reduce transmission charges to other customers. BAAJA also offers additional policies through its “Ratepayer Protection Floor” that could be implemented by states to ensure further ratepayer protection.

Under BAAJA ratepayer protection provisions, this new white paper from Grid Strategies estimates $55 billion in transmission costs could be collected from data centers over ten years due to changes to federal transmission pricing policy—that number represents an additional $35 billion over what data centers may otherwise pay under current policy.

Download the white paper below. To learn more about this topic, also check out Grid Strategies’ Federal Transmission Pricing Policy report series. This white paper was developed with support from Arnold Ventures.