States are finally asking who actually foots the bill when a hyperscaler plugs in a gigawatt — and, until very recently, the answer was you. Welcome to The Data Center Daily. Today we're unpacking the cost-allocation fight spreading from Maryland to Florida to the PUC dockets — ratepayer versus data center, and regulators are picking sides. I've been yelling about this for two years: if you're adding load, you pay for the wire. Now it's actually showing up in statute. And a three-billion-dollar CRE fund from Principal Financial — we'll get into what that says about where private capital thinks this buildout is going. The Cooldown, with Erin Feiger:
Bloomberg reported that Maryland's Office of People's Counsel has filed a complaint with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, arguing that PJM is assigning transmission costs unfairly. According to the complaint, Maryland residents are being charged for infrastructure projects even though the main driver is data center growth beyond the state's borders. The agency said residential customers in Maryland could end up covering about $2 billion in capital costs, adding roughly $1.6 billion to household electric bills over 10 years.
Picking up Friday's FERC large-load delay story — Maryland's Office of People's Counsel has now filed a complaint with FERC, arguing that PJM is sticking residential ratepayers with roughly $1.6 billion in transmission upgrades over the next decade. And those upgrades are being driven largely by data center load outside Maryland's borders. So hyperscalers build in Northern Virginia, and Maryland homeowners get the bill. That's a scam with better branding. The complaint wants FERC to move those costs to where the load actually is, or just invoice the data centers directly — which should've been the default. PJM's cost-sharing math has always socialized transmission expenses broadly, and that was fine when load growth was spread out. It breaks down fast when one industry is spiking demand in one corridor and everybody else is splitting the check. And nobody's going to stand up at an AWS earnings call and say, 'We externalized a billion-six onto Maryland retirees.' Watch the silence on that one. This one's from KYKN:
Portland, Ore. – The Oregon Public Utilities Commission approved key elements of Portland General Electric’s proposals for charging customers based on their contribution to growth. The decision means that data centers will pay more for new infrastructure that supports their growth.
Oregon PUC signed off on Portland General Electric's cost-allocation framework for data centers — the short version is Schedule 96, a dedicated customer class that puts infrastructure growth costs on the load that's driving them, not on residential and small-business ratepayers. This is what cost causation looks like when a regulator actually enforces it. You want the megawatts, you pay for the wires to get there. Novel concept, apparently. The order adopts growth-based cost allocation, and the article gets cut off before the full list, but the core win for PGE is clear: new transmission and distribution infrastructure triggered by hyperscaler load doesn't get socialized across the rate base. And that's the fight in a dozen other states right now, where the PUC hasn't moved yet and grandma's electric bill is quietly subsidizing somebody's GPU cluster. The Hayride writes:
Commissioner Davante Lewis said the commission is working toward establishing “large-load tariffs,” formal rate structures that would define how major users pay for power, transmission upgrades and other infrastructure. “There is a committed goal to have large-load tariffs,” Lewis said, adding the effort remains in early stages.
Louisiana Public Service Commission held a technical conference Thursday on large-load tariffs — formal rate structures that would make data centers and heavy industry pay their share of transmission upgrades instead of socializing those costs to existing ratepayers. Commissioner Davante Lewis called it a committed goal, but he also said they're still in early stages, so let's not sprint ahead of the docket. Early stages is doing a lot of work there. More than half of states already have some version of this, with thresholds anywhere from five megawatts to a hundred-plus. Louisiana is late, and every month without a tariff is another month a steel mill or a hyperscaler plugs in and the grandmother in Baton Rouge eats the wire upgrade. Lewis literally posted, 'we do not want to be left behind' on social media, which is a wild thing for a utility regulator to have to say in 2026, but here we are. Here's Emily L. Mahoney at Tampa Bay Times:
(TNS) — Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law Thursday to regulate large-scale data centers in Florida, promising that consumers would not bear the burden of the artificial intelligence boom with higher electric bills or more scarce water resources.“You should not, as a hard-working Floridian, have to subsidize some of the wealthiest companies in the history of humanity,” DeSantis said at a Lakeland news conference shortly before he signed the bill.
Florida's got a new data center law. DeSantis signed it Thursday in Lakeland — large-scale facilities, guardrails on ratepayer cost-shifting and water use. He's calling it the first of its kind in the country. I'll give DeSantis this much: 'you shouldn't subsidize the wealthiest companies in history through your electric bill' is not a complicated argument, and it's been true for years before anyone said it out loud at a bill signing. The interesting mechanics are what we don't have yet — what counts as 'large-scale,' what the water triggers are, and whether this is a hard cap or a cost-allocation rule. Those details are load-bearing. And who enforces it. Rural counties near these projects have been on the wrong end of every promise this industry makes. A press release from Tallahassee is not a rate case. Here's AI Consulting Network:
What is the Principal Financial data center fundraise? The Principal Financial data center fundraise is a $3 billion two-fund effort (US and Europe) launched May 8, 2026 by the asset management arm of Principal Financial Group, targeting 18% to 20% net IRR over 8 years and signaling where institutional real estate capital is flowing in 2026.
Principal Financial closed a $3.64 billion data center fund in February, and by May 8 they're already back with two more — $2 billion US, $1 billion Europe — targeting 18 to 20 percent net IRR over eight years. Eighteen to twenty IRR is opportunistic-fund territory, not your boring core-plus office play. They're pricing in real risk here — which means somebody in the stack is eating that risk, and I'd like to know if it's the ratepayer or the pension fund LP. Worth flagging — this is a fundraise target, not committed capital. And the deployment path runs through existing partners, so the actual buildout timeline depends on deals that may not be signed yet. Three-point-six billion closed in February, three billion more in May — institutional CRE is clearly rotating hard into data centers. I just want to see the power interconnection agreements before I call any of it shovel-ready. You’ll find links to every story we covered today in the show notes, so if one caught your ear, you can dig into the full piece there.
That’s The Data Center Daily for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.