Tech giants deem Ohio’s data center tariffs ‘unfair’ and ‘discriminatory’

An Ohio power company has proposed that data center operators like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta pay a significant chunk of the expected load, due to their huge energy consumption.

Tech companies had originally agreed to pay 60 percent of the projected amount. However, American Electric Power Ohio is now calling for the firms to put up 90 percent of the costs as part of a 10-year new fee structure, even if they don’t end up using that much. Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta are fighting the plan, deeming the move “unfair” and “discriminatory” in documents filed with Ohio’s Public Utility Commission last month.

AEP Ohio has proposed creating two new tariffs designed to help the company accommodate an unprecedented amount of anticipated load growth from an influx of new data centers within its service territory. This includes a “Data Center Power” tariff for new data center customers with a monthly demand of 25 MW or more, and a “Mobile Data Center” tariff for new mobile data center customers, such as cryptocurrency miners, with a monthly demand more than 1 MW.

Important for how utility companies are looking to handle data center power consumption growth…this decision will be pivotal >

"AEP Ohio opened a proceeding (Docket 24-05058) with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, proposing to create two new tariffs designed to help… pic.twitter.com/TgAk784VPS

— Tracy Shuchart (