In the near future, I will introduce a package of bills to protect Pennsylvania communities and ratepayers as large AI-scale data centers begin rapid expansion across the Commonwealth.

PJM now projects that most of the region’s expected load growth over the next decade will come from new data center demand. Governor Shapiro recently announced a twenty-billion-dollar AI infrastructure investment, and PPL has reported that its data center interconnection queue may reach fourteen gigawatts by 2034. These projects bring economic opportunity, but they also create significant pressures on our electric grid, local water systems, and community infrastructure. Without safeguards, the costs of serving these massive loads will be shifted onto residential customers.

This package provides a balanced, reasonable framework to ensure that data center development does not raise electric bills or overwhelm local communities. It protects ratepayers from cost shifting, directs financial benefits back to the middle-class households in the affected grid-zones, and gives municipalities and the PUC the tools they need to manage reliability, noise, land use, and water impacts.
The package will include the following bills:

1. Data Center Cost Responsibility Act. Amends the Public Utility Code to prohibit utilities from charging residential or small business customers for grid upgrades caused by large data centers and requires PUC approval of all large-load service agreements.
2. Grid Impact Fee and Customer Credit Act. Creates a per MWh impact fee on large data centers, returned as bill credits to customers within the affected electric distribution grid-zone. 
3. Priority Power Act. Gives the PUC explicit authority to delay or phase in service to large new loads when immediate service would threaten reliability or impose unreasonable costs on other customers.
4. Data Center Demand Response and Flexible Load Act. Requires large data centers to participate in PUC-approved demand response programs or demonstrate equivalent onsite resources.
5. Municipal Protections for Data Center Development Act. Amends the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code (MPC) to strengthen local authority over large data center siting. Requires disclosure of projected water use and infrastructure impacts, allows municipalities to consider water capacity and affordability during review, classifies large data centers as industrial uses, authorizes enforceable noise standards including low-frequency sound, and confirms municipal authority to impose setbacks, buffering, visual mitigation, and site-specific conditions.
6. Excess Generation Cost Protection Act. Ensures the PUC prevents utilities from passing above-market costs onto ratepayers when purchasing excess generation from co-located data center generators which produce excess electricity that is sold back to the grid. 

Together, these proposals form a responsible path forward for data center growth in Pennsylvania. They help attract investment while ensuring that families and local communities are protected from the rising costs and infrastructure impacts associated with these large new loads.

I invite you to join me in cosponsoring this legislative package.