• The US House Energy and Commerce Committee advanced H.R. 9340 by 52-0, sending the amended bill to the full House

• States would consider requiring data centres with at least 100MW of peak demand to fund grid upgrades and provide financial assurances


The fact

The US House Energy and Commerce Committee approved H.R. 9340, the Ratepayer Protection Act, by 52 votes to none on 21 July, sending the amended bill to the full House. The proposal has not passed either chamber of Congress. The bill would apply to data centres with combined peak electricity demand of at least 100MW at a single site or campus. To qualify, the site would have to use electricity mainly for IT infrastructure, data storage and computing services. The amendment narrows earlier language that could have covered other large non-residential electricity customers.

The proposal would require state regulators and utilities outside state regulation to consider a new cost standard for qualifying data centres. Under that standard, customers would cover the full incremental cost of the generation, transmission and distribution upgrades needed to serve their sites, and utilities could require a financial guarantee or upfront contribution before starting the work.

Customers could remain liable if they later cancelled their electricity agreements or stopped taking power. States would generally have one year to begin reviewing the standard and two years to reach a decision.

The assessment

The bill places more cancellation risk on data-centre operators before utilities commit capital to grid upgrades. But it leaves significant gaps. Regulators would need to determine how to calculate shared costs when new infrastructure serves both the data centre and other customers, and how to set the required financial guarantee.

Each state would still decide whether to adopt the standard, and the bill has not passed Congress.

For BTW readers, the practical effect is that securing a large data-centre grid connection would require upfront funding commitments—raising the capital bar for new sites and potentially affecting project economics and site-selection decisions.

What to watch

Watch whether House leaders schedule H.R. 9340 for a vote and whether lawmakers change the 100 MW threshold or the state-review process. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee would also need to consider companion bill S. 5028. If Congress passes the measure, state regulators would then decide whether and how to adopt the proposed standard.