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Comments Sought Re: Interconnection Tariffs For Large Load Customers
The Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission issues a press release announcing that it is now accepting public comments on the issues raised during the April 24 En Banc Hearing Concerning Interconnection and Tariffs for Large Load Customers.
Comments are due Tuesday, May 27, 2025. A 15-day reply comment period will follow, with reply comments due by Wednesday, June 11, 2025.
The Commission also announces that it has developed a page on their website for the En Banc Hearing that includes the agenda, testimony, video of the hearing, and other related materials. The link to the En Banc webpage can be found here.
Parties filed hearing testimony including Amazon, Google and Staff.
In filed testimony, Amazon (AWS) first “urges the Commission to continue operating in a non-discriminatory manner that focuses regulations based on load profiles and a cost-of-service model, rather than targeting individual customer or industry types. Such an approach ensures fairness and flexibility across industries and use cases, while keeping the focus on cost-causation principals.
Second, utilities and regulators should continue to consider, as a balanced overall commercial package, the adoption of mutual commitments like reasonable contract term lengths, fair collateral requirements, minimum demand charges, and appropriate exit provisions, balanced by corresponding commitments of service from the utility to the customer. These provisions ensure that costs to support data center growth are not passed along to other customers, promote the efficient use of the transmission system, and need to be considered as an overall balanced package often developed based on the individual utility and regional needs, constraints, and opportunities.
Third, the above commercial provision should be structured so utilities are able to proactively attract and swiftly integrate large load customers like AWS onto the grid in a manner that fully recovers the costs to serve without shifting the financial burden on existing or remaining customers. Large load customers work alongside utility partners to cover their fair share of infrastructure costs, increasing reliability and investing in resources that reduce grid disruptions for all customers. Transparent cost structures for interconnection with expedited development opportunities for users willing to self-construct infrastructure like substation or system upgrades, and source generation capacity at their own expense, should enable speed to market. This speed enablement can come in different forms, most likely defined interconnection study timelines or service level agreements (SLA) for physical interconnection for load’s that meet specified requirements.
Fourth, the development of such provisions should continue to account for the benefits that Large Load Customers bring to the system, again back to a cost-causation approach. Large Load Customer like Data Center’s provide a stable, predictable load growth and profile, that are critical to economic growth and US leadership on cloud, gen AI, and machine learning. This growth is also supporting the re-investment in and modernization of the US electric grid for the benefit of all rate payers. {***}
Staff recommended: (1) “developing a model tariff that levels the playing field for utilities seeking to serve data center customers,” noting that “utility tariffs are transparent as they undergo scrutiny in base rate proceedings by various stakeholders, ratepayers, Administrative Law Judges and ultimately require Commission approval; and (2) “establishing protections for ratepayers from stranded costs must be at the forefront,” including that “any determination of contributions in aid of construction that relies on an anticipated usage level and associated revenue should contain a provision requiring an alteration of assigned rates or an additional construction contribution in the event that anticipated usage levels do not materialize, or the project is terminated before completion.”
View all filed comments here.
(En Banc Hearing Examining The Impact Of Hyperscale Data Centers And Other Large-Load Energy Users On Pennsylvania’s Electric Grid.)
