Members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission told a Senate energy panel Wednesday that the shot clock has started for regional power grid operators to show they can meet the escalating electricity demand of the U.S. tech economy without piling more costs onto household utility bills.
In questioning the five-person bipartisan commission, members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee largely praised FERC’s handling of mounting issues attached to the rapidly expanding consumption of electricity by data centers.
Last month, FERC gave six grid operators managing power flows for two-thirds of the country a tight deadline to show that the rates and conditions that apply to tech hubs packed with powerful servers and artificial intelligence chips are “just and reasonable” — or face federal fixes.
“FERC now sits at the center of some of the most important questions facing our country: reliable electricity, affordable energy, data centers, manufacturing, national security,” said Energy and Natural Resources Chair Mike Lee (R-Utah). “Every one of these issues, in its own way, now runs directly through FERC.”
