Utility Dive intl_tech D1

发布：2026-06-09 · 事件：2026-06-09

An article from Dive Brief FirstEnergy asks FERC to require data centers to pay for transmission interconnection costs FirstEnergy’s plan adopts a cost allocation practice from the gas pipeline sector...

An article from Dive Brief FirstEnergy asks FERC to require data centers to pay for transmission interconnection costs FirstEnergy’s plan adopts a cost allocation practice from the gas pipeline sector. It comes ahead of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s expected large load interconnection decision on June 18. Published June 9, 2026 Ethan Howland Senior Reporter Share Copy link Email LinkedIn X/Twitter Facebook Print License Add us on Google A 49.5-MW data center under construction in Vernon, Calif. FirstEnergy on June 5, 2026, proposed that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission require data centers to pay for transmission upgrades needed to bring them online. Mario Tama via Getty Images Listen to the article 4 min This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback . Dive Brief: FirstEnergy on Friday urged the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to require data centers to pay for transmission upgrades needed to bring them online instead of spreading those costs across existing customers as is current practice. The proposal is based on a cost allocation method that has been used for natural gas pipelines for more than 25 years, according to FirstEnergy. It could be adopted without requiring legislation or “novel regulatory authority,” the Akron, Ohio-based utility company said. The proposal faced pushback at FERC on Monday from Maven Solutions, a consulting firm specializing in AI infrastructure governance and other issues. “FirstEnergy’s framework guarantees the transmission owner’s cost recovery, collateralizes the transmission owner’s investment, and shifts all demand-forecast, utilization, and cancellation risk from the utility to the customer,” Jayne Algermissen, Maven Solutions founder and technical program manager, said in the filing. Dive Insight: FirstEnergy made its proposal as part of FERC’s consideration of possible rules for interconnecting data centers and other large loads to the transmission system . Cost allocation is one of the issues FERC is expected to tackle in that decision, which could be voted on at its June 18 open meeting. With data center development facing public opposition across the United States, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle and xAI in March signed the White House “ Ratepayer Protection Pledge ,” saying they would pay for the power-related infrastructure needed to bring electricity to their facilities. However, existing transmission rules won’t allow that to happen, according to FirstEnergy. Currently, the costs of building transmission infrastructure for data centers are spread across the zone where the infrastructure is built, the utility company noted. FERC should look to its own rules that allow incremental pricing for pipeline infrastructure as a model for the transmission system, FirstEnergy said. Under FirstEnergy’s proposal, data center customers would pay two rate components under 15-year contracts, which would include collateral and other requirements. Data centers would pay their share of the existing zonal transmission rate as well as an expansion rate for the costs of network upgrades needed to interconnect their facilities to the grid, FirstEnergy said. “Doing so would protect households from unforeseen cost shifts, provide data center developers with predictable and financeable cost structures, and preserve the conditions necessary to build the transmission infrastructure the nation urgently requires,” the company said. A data center’s expansion-rate obligation could be reallocated annually as new customers interconnect to the same transmission facilities, reducing the cost paid by any individual participant over time, FirstEnergy said. The proposal avoids FERC’s prohibition on so-called “and pricing” — the practice of billing a customer twice for the same transmission capacity, FirstEnergy said. “Each customer pays its pro-rata share of the zonal transmission rate, which covers the existing system; only the data center driving the expansion pays the additional expansion rate, which covers the new facilities built to serve it,” FirstEnergy said. FirstEnergy’s proposal nods to consumer protection concerns, but it reflects the interests of a transmission owner with about 24,000 miles of transmission lines in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions, Maven Solutions said. Further, the proposal fails to consider communities that will be affected by data centers, Maven Solutions said, noting the opposition to data centers. “A framework that assigns transmission costs while ignoring the communities standing next to the transmission facilities will not resolve that opposition,” Maven Solution’s Algermissen said. “It will deepen it.” Any large load cost-allocation framework should include “anti-overbuild” safeguards, according to Maven Solutions. “Where the utility’s cost recovery is secured by collateral and long-term agreements, the incentive to oversize facilities must be checked by independent engineering review,” Algermi