Ratepayers are getting the bill for the AI buildout. And some states are finally saying, not so fast. Welcome to The Data Center Daily. Today we're on a regulatory wave: Maryland, Oregon, Florida, and a few others are all circling the same question — who actually pays when a hyperscaler plugs in? Spoiler: it’s been the homeowner. And the fact that it took a $1.6 billion Maryland surcharge to make this a headline tells you everything about how slow this conversation has been. Cost allocation, PGE’s new cost-causer framework, Florida’s guardrails bill, and a $3 billion CRE fund — that’s the lane we’re in today. 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.
Following up on Friday’s FERC large-load delay story, Maryland’s Office of People’s Counsel has now filed a complaint saying PJM is pinning roughly $1.6 billion in transmission upgrades on residential customers, even though the load driving it isn’t even in Maryland. So the hyperscalers build in Northern Virginia, the grid gets stressed across PJM, and the family in Baltimore County picks up the tab. Real convenient accounting, if you’re one of the big load customers. The complaint wants FERC to shift those transmission costs to the zones hosting the data center load, or bill the large customers directly. That’s the straightforward fix — whether FERC actually moves is another matter. FERC’s been sitting on large-load queue reform for years. A consumer advocate filing a complaint is the right move, but I wouldn’t pencil in relief for Maryland ratepayers any time soon. 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’s PUC just approved PGE’s cost-allocation framework for data centers — new customer class, Schedule 96, and the idea that large load customers should pay for the infrastructure their growth requires, not residential ratepayers. This is what cost causation looks like when a regulator has a spine. Data center wants a new substation and a transmission upgrade — data center pays for the new substation and the transmission upgrade. Wild stuff. The order creates a dedicated class for large-load data centers. PGE said they’re different in scale and infrastructure demand, and the PUC agreed. That classification matters in every rate case that comes next. And it matters as precedent. Every other utility watching hyperscalers roll into town now has a template to point at. Oregon PUC just did the homework for them. 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 PSC held a technical conference Thursday on large-load tariffs — the formal rate structures that define how data centers and heavy industry pay for power and transmission upgrades. Commissioner Davante Lewis put it pretty plainly: more than half of states already have some version of this, thresholds run from five to a hundred-plus megawatts, and Louisiana doesn’t want to be last. Translation: a steel mill and a hyperscaler show up, plug into the grid, and suddenly the family in Baton Rouge is paying for transmission upgrades they never asked for. Large-load tariffs are supposed to stop that. The fact that Louisiana is still in early stages while it’s actively courting these projects is a little backwards. Lewis didn’t announce a tariff, to be clear — he announced a committed goal to eventually have one. That gap matters. We’ll see whether the push to land deals speeds up the rulemaking or quietly buries it. 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 law on the books — DeSantis signed it Thursday. It sets guardrails for large-scale data centers so ratepayers don’t foot the bill for power cost increases, and it addresses water scarcity tied to hyperscaler buildouts. DeSantis is calling it the first of its kind in the country. I’ll say this: ‘you shouldn’t subsidize the wealthiest companies in history’ is not a line I expected out of Tallahassee, but here we are. The real test is whether the enforcement teeth match the press conference energy, because rural Florida has watched these projects land with big promises and then watched their water table and utility bills drift the wrong way. The bill targets large-scale facilities specifically, which is where the load growth actually lives. We don’t have the MW thresholds or the cost-allocation mechanics from the text yet, so the devil is still in the utility commission proceedings. Signed law is better than a press release, I’ll grant that. But ‘consumers won’t bear the burden’ is the kind of promise that gets stress-tested the first time a hyperscaler’s interconnection agreement hits 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 is back at the data center fundraise window — two new private equity real estate funds, two billion in the US and one billion in Europe, both targeting 18 to 20 percent net IRR over eight years. This follows the $3.64 billion Principal Data Center Growth and Income Fund that closed in February. Eighteen to 20 IRR is opportunistic territory — that’s not a boring stabilized-asset yield, that’s ‘we think we can find deals the market hasn’t priced correctly yet.’ The question is whether that’s development risk, lease-up risk, or just the PowerPoint being optimistic. To be fair, 200 to 400 basis points over core-plus CRE is the right frame. They’re not pitching this as bond-like yield; they’re pitching a real risk premium for the build cycle. Whether they hit it depends on where they deploy and whether those hyperscaler tenants are signed or still a handshake. And the Europe fund is only a billion, which tells you something — either the pipeline is thinner or the permitting headaches are real and they know it. Got thoughts on today’s briefing, a story we should be tracking, or a correction? Send us a note anytime at datacenterdaily at lantern podcasts dot com. We read every message.
You’ll find links to everything we covered today in the show notes, so if a story caught your attention, that’s the place to dig in a little further.
That’s The Data Center Daily for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.