Gov. Stein Advocates for Data Center Accountability and More Affordable Clean Energy 

Governor Josh Stein headed to Washington last Friday with a bipartisan group of governors to sign a joint statement of principles designed to help keep the cost of electricity down.

“I am committed to keeping electricity cost as low as possible for families,” said Governor Stein. “That means making sure data centers pay their fair share for the electricity they require to be generated. I applaud the US Department of Energy for this initiative and remain committed to making life as affordable as possible for North Carolinians.” 

Protecting Households and Small Businesses

The Statement of Principles includes measures to protect households and small businesses from capacity price increases, fairly allocate costs of new capacity to data centers that have not brought their own power or embraced flexibility, and improve load forecasting.

The joint statement being signed specifically covers an interstate grid market covering 67 million people in 13 mid-Atlantic or inland states. It includes a two-year price cap for power auctions on that grid. It would force new data center developers to take on a greater share of the costs of expanding capacity to power their projects. While this is great news for PJM customers, unfortunately only Northeast North Carolina is a part of this electricity market. Further actions must be taken to cover the rest of our state and its customers.

Take Action

Write to Governor Stein, thank him for his actions thus far, and encourage him to expand these protections to our entire state! By taking action, you’re advocating for stronger controls on the climbing cost of electricity caused by dirty energy development and wasteful new massive data centers.

Trump’s War on Clean Energy

This announced deal “shows that public pressure still works, but what happens next will determine whether people enjoy lower prices and cleaner communities sooner, or if they are locked in to waiting for dirtier and more expensive energy. We have been calling for data centers and tech companies to pay their fair share and to power with clean energy because sources like solar, wind, and battery storage are the cheapest and fastest ways to get more electricity onto the grid,” said League of Conservation Voters (LCV) Senior Director of State Climate and Equity Policy Lashelle Johnson. “Governors should use their authority to ensure data centers power operations with cheap solar and batteries and meet state clean energy goals. People understand data centers are one of the reasons electricity prices are skyrocketing and are rightly demanding solutions that can address this problem as quickly as possible. Today’s announcement only underscores why the Trump administration’s war on clean energy needs to end.”