Monday, 13 July 2026

Duke Energy has proposed special rules and prices for data centers in North Carolina, according to Canary Media.

The move follows months of pressure from clean energy and consumer advocates in the state, who pushed the utility to create dedicated rules and prices for data centers, Canary Media reported.

Duke Energy had previously insisted such rules were unnecessary, according to Canary Media. The utility rejected claims that data centers could overwhelm the grid.

Expected power demand from data centers was a primary reason for USD 23 billion in customer price increases that will last until at least the end of 2028, according to a report by the organization that monitors the PJM market, an area covering all or part of 14 mid-Atlantic and Midwest states.

Assigning those costs fairly is difficult because of how data centers manage their electricity use, The Conversation reports. One common criterion for determining a customer's share of costs is coincident peak demand, the amount a customer group uses at the moment when all customers collectively use the largest amount of electricity.

Data centers may be able to predict when system loads will peak and consume little to no power in that period, avoiding contributions to peak loads, as has happened with cryptocurrency-mining operations in Texas, according to The Conversation. That capacity to fine-tune consumption complicates efforts to allocate costs based on peak usage.

Customer interests before state utility regulators are represented through offices of the consumer advocate. Every U.S. state except Georgia, Idaho and Louisiana has such an office, according to The Conversation.

President Trump said his administration is clearing plans for data center power plants within weeks, according to Inside Climate News. Tech firms can tap any energy source but one, he said: "We don't allow wind".

According to Inside Climate News, Trump said Big Tech leaders pursuing artificial intelligence had told him they need twice the country's current energy capacity to advance the technology and stay ahead of foreign rivals. Wind supplies a tenth of US electricity, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported.

The drive to feed data centers has generated proposals for 74 new or expanded methane gas plants nationwide, according to a report by the Environmental Integrity Project. Dedicated to serving those facilities, the proposed gas plants would produce 143 gigawatts, the report found.

Texas holds 32 of the 74 sites, with 10 in Ohio and seven in Pennsylvania, according to the report. The Environmental Integrity Project estimated the plants would emit close to 662 million tons of greenhouse gas pollution a year, matching the emissions of Australia.