Public Service Commission doing work for Data Centers shifting costs onto ratepayers.

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Well, the two main substantive requirements are first, that the utility must have an electricity supply agreement with the data center with a minimum 15-year term, and second, that the data center must commit to covering at least half of the cost of that new power plant.

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Ratepayers could fund as much as 75% of capital costs

Electricity infrastructure typically lasts for decades and is paid for by ratepayers until it fully “depreciates.” A depreciation schedule is like a mortgage schedule for paying off the loan taken out for buying a house (there are distinctions between the two, but for the purposes of this piece, we’ll keep it simple).

These terms set up the first trap for ratepayers. A proposed data-center-serving gas power plant, for example, doesn’t fully depreciate over 15 years. Typically this depreciation takes place over a much longer period, around 30 years or more. (Note: a 30-year “depreciable life” would align with Entergy Louisiana’s three gas plants approved last year for Meta Platforms’ data center in Richland Parish.)

In that scenario, we’d have a situation where a utility company could go through this new fast-track process while only securing 25% of the revenue needed to pay for the capital costs of the gas plant: half of the costs for half the depreciable life. Because there is no requirement in the Lightning Amendment for a utility company’s shareholders to share in the costs, ratepayers would be on the hook for the remaining 75%.

In that situation, the LPSC could hold these actors accountable, and protect ratepayers, by “disallowing” costs from being passed to ratepayers further down the line if the utility acted “imprudently.” A finding of such imprudence would require the utility’s shareholders pay up, instead of ratepayers. However, absent any blatant and visible mismanagement, the Commission is unlikely to conclude the utility acted imprudently after they’ve strongly signaled with this new policy that they’re okay with ratepayers subsidizing Big Tech’s data center development.

And though the language in the minutes is vague, this arrangement appears to be is just for the capitalcosts, meaning the physical infrastructure being constructed. The requirement to cover half of the associated costs does not seem to include operational costs, such as fuel purchases, which Entergy’s customers are also slated to subsidize after the approval of its gas plant project for the Meta data center.

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Keep reading, baw:

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Some leftie wrote that report. Consider the source.

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Electricity is like any other commodity. Price goes up with demand. You don’t get to claim it as only for residential.

Bunch of commies.

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