THE ISSUE<\/p>\n
\u201cConsumer advocates warned a panel of Pennsylvania House members (at a Oct. 22 hearing) that commonwealth residents will continue to bear the burden of rising electricity costs unless policymakers take steps to regulate a growing number of new data centers,\u201d Jaxon White of WITF and LNP | LancasterOnline reported Sunday.<\/a> \u201cCurrently, Pennsylvania has no statewide regulations overseeing the facilities that house computers and networking equipment key to cloud computing and artificial intelligence.\u201d<\/p>\n You know that old saying about shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted?<\/p>\n We\u2019re nearly at that point with data centers.<\/p>\n Investors are pushing data center construction to feed the insatiable demand for artificial intelligence. And governments \u2014 including Lancaster city\u2019s \u2014 are being caught flat-footed, having failed to put regulations in place that might help them sensibly navigate the current data center construction boom.<\/p>\n Lancaster City Council, for instance, is just now drafting rules relating to<\/a> noise, water and electricity usage, air quality testing and public hearings for data centers \u2014 several months after the AI and cloud computing company CoreWeave announced plans to build a massive, $6 billion data center on Greenfield Road in the city.<\/p>\n That horse has bolted, leaving the door hanging off its hinges.<\/p>\n Which is not to say that Lancaster City Council should halt its efforts to enact a data center ordinance. Better later than never (especially as another proposed data center is to be located at 1375 Harrisburg Pike).<\/p>\n But it would be better for everyone involved \u2014 data center developers, tech companies, local governments, utilities and, most importantly, taxpayers \u2014 if regulations were in place before construction begins. Because regrets can hit hard.<\/p>\n Consider what happened in Ireland.<\/p>\n As The New York Times<\/a> reported earlier this month, Ireland \u201crolled out the red carpet for tech\u201d for two decades. About 120 data centers now \u201care clustered around Dublin and dot the countryside beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n A third of Ireland\u2019s electricity is expected to go to data centers in the next few years and the country\u2019s power grid is facing a crisis. \u201cIreland\u2019s welcoming mood has soured,\u201d The New York Times noted. \u201cThe country has become one of the clearest examples of the transnational backlash against data centers.\u201d<\/p>\n Ireland is a cautionary tale that Pennsylvania lawmakers ought to heed.<\/p>\n Which is why we are heartened by legislation introduced by state Rep. Robert Matzie, D-Beaver, that would allow the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission to establish rules and guidelines for the development of data centers in the commonwealth.<\/p>\n To some, data centers may seem like a boon to a community, especially when, as in Lancaster city, it\u2019s a $6 billion investment. But the question that must be asked<\/a> of each proposed new data center is this: What will community members get out of that investment (how many long-term jobs, for instance)? And what will the data center cost community members?<\/p>\n According to the nonprofit Environmental and Energy Study Institute, large \u201cdata centers can consume up to 5 million gallons (of water) per day, equivalent to the water use of a town populated by 10,000 to 50,000 people.\u201d<\/p>\n Lancaster city officials have downplayed the potential water usage, saying that the Greenfield Road facility is expected to be air-cooled and so should not draw large amounts of water for cooling purposes.<\/p>\n But, as we pointed out in a previous editorial<\/a>, air-cooled data centers use more electricity. A report released last December by the U.S. Department of Energy found that data centers \u201care expected to consume approximately 6.7% to 12% of total U.S. electricity by 2028.\u201d And air cooling will likely become more expensive as temperatures continue to rise due to climate change.<\/p>\n At the Oct. 22 hearing of the state House Energy Committee, Patrick Cicero, counsel at the Pennsylvania Utility Law Project, told lawmakers that data center developers are not paying their fair share of energy demands.<\/p>\n \u201cWe think cost-causers should pay, and there\u2019s a direct line between who\u2019s causing these costs,\u201d Cicero said. \u201cAnd they\u2019re simply not paying right now because of our policy that currently exists.\u201d<\/p>\n When a data center burdens the energy grid, electricity rates may rise as a result. As WITF and LNP | LancasterOnline reported, \u201cPennsylvanians have already paid for about $16.6 billion worth of electricity \u2018purely as a result of data center load,\u2019 according to Joseph Bowring, an independent market monitor\u201d for PJM Interconnection<\/a> (which manages the electrical grid for 13 states, including Pennsylvania).<\/p>\n We agree with Cicero and the Pennsylvania Utility Law Project that this must change.<\/p>\n And Matzie\u2019s legislation would change it.<\/p>\n House Bill 1834<\/a> would shield ratepayers from paying any cost \u201cdirectly attributable\u201d to a data center\u2019s electricity use.<\/p>\n Some of the particulars of Matzie\u2019s bill need to be refined.<\/p>\n It proposes, for instance, that a minimum of 25% of the electricity used by a data center be generated by renewable energy sources. Data center proponents believe this is too restrictive, and even Pennsylvania Consumer Advocate Darryl Lawrence said this component of the bill is \u201clikely unworkable.\u201d<\/p>\n But other aspects of House Bill 1834 seem reasonable and necessary.<\/p>\n One provision, according to WHYY,<\/a> would require the Public Utility Commission to consider curtailing some or all of a commercial data center\u2019s load during emergency conditions.<\/p>\n The legislation, as WITF and LNP | LancasterOnline reported, also would require \u201cdata centers that demand at least 25 megawatts of power to contribute annual payments to the federally funded Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program. The payments would begin at $250,000 annually and rise depending on megawatt usage.\u201d<\/p>\n This is a good idea, but the numbers seem paltry to us, given the vast sums of money that companies such as CoreWeave are spending to build data centers.<\/p>\n Matzie, however, is right to seek the establishment of a regulatory framework for data centers in Pennsylvania. Because there\u2019s also this to consider: As WHYY pointed out, Matzie\u2019s legislation follows a Trump administration push \u201cto accelerate AI development with limited regulatory oversight,\u201d and Gov. Josh Shapiro has embraced Amazon\u2019s<\/a> $20 billion investment in developing data centers across the state.<\/p>\n So more data centers are in our future.<\/p>\n PJM projects that data centers will add nearly all of the 32 gigawatts of demand on the state\u2019s power grid by 2030. Stephen DeFrank, chair of the Public Utility Commission, said Pennsylvania is facing a worsening electricity shortage.<\/p>\n If the state Legislature doesn\u2019t act, commonwealth residents will pay the price.<\/p>\n \n Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup.\n <\/p>\n \n Error! There was an error processing your request.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"THE ISSUE \u201cConsumer advocates warned a panel of Pennsylvania House members (at a Oct. 22 hearing) that commonwealth…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2116,3947,13046,28,30,29,8798],"class_list":["post-18546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-data-centers","tag-editorial","tag-electricity-rates","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-subscriberexclusive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}