Community Takeaway
The “data centers bring investment” pitch gets its rebuttal on the distribution-rate line of the bill. AEP Ohio's data-center-specific tariff is the right idea on paper — a separate cost class for large loads, with a minimum monthly charge that captures the grid capacity they reserve even when not drawing full power. Whether it works in practice depends entirely on how PUCO applies it across the next three to five years of rate cases. The April settlement is the first real data point.
The Ohio Edison storm-cost spread is the less visible pattern — an 87-cent-a-month increase that no one will protest, compounding across 25 years, recovered from residential customers rather than from the large industrial and commercial accounts that also benefit from grid reliability. When the next wave of $1.4 trillion in utility capex lands in rate cases across every state, the Ohio Edison mechanism is the one to watch for. Small dollar amounts, long amortization windows, and allocation formulas that push costs down the customer hierarchy are how the buildout actually gets paid for — and the customer class with the least leverage absorbs the most of it.
# Virginia Lawmakers Accept Governor's Data-Center Cost-Shift — But Reject Her Cap on Dominion's Profit Margin
VA | Fiscal / Data Centers / State Legislation | April 23, 2026
Source: Virginia Mercury (States Newsroom)
In a closely watched veto-session vote Wednesday, the Virginia General Assembly split the difference on Gov. Abigail Spanberger's amendments to SB 253 and HB 1393 — the two major data-center cost-shift bills passed earlier this year. The outcome is Virginia's first statutory acknowledgment that hyperscalers should bear their own grid costs, with the profit-side lever on Dominion Energy's balance sheet left untouched.
Accepted. Lawmakers accepted Spanberger's substitute language directing the State Corporation Commission (SCC) — Virginia's utility regulator — to determine whether data centers and other high-load customers are paying “their fair share” of distribution and PJM capacity costs. The shift routes the cost-allocation question through commission review rather than legislative fiat, but it keeps the cost-shift principle in statute for the first time.
Rejected. Lawmakers rejected two of Spanberger's more aggressive proposals:
- A cap on Dominion Energy's allowed return on equity at 9.3%, down from the current 9.8% — a half-point reduction that, on Dominion's Virginia rate base, translates into hundreds of millions of dollars in annual profit the utility would have forgone.
- A cap on costly underground-line burial at 2% of the distribution rate base — an amendment aimed at a practice that has added tens of millions annually to Dominion's recoverable spending without corresponding reliability gains.
Sponsors said the original SB 253/HB 1393 package, had it passed as introduced, would have saved the average residential customer about $5.52 per month. Spanberger's substitute version routes that savings — in principle — through the SCC's determination. Whether the $5.52 figure survives in the SCC's application of the cost-shift standard is the open question.
For context on what the ROE cap would have meant: Dominion's parent company, Dominion Energy Inc., reported $3.0 billion in operating earnings in 2025, with Virginia making up roughly 70% of its customer base. A half-point reduction in allowed ROE is a material number — the kind of change that moves shareholder-return calculations and analyst models. Rejecting it keeps Dominion's profit-margin structure intact while accepting a cost-shift framework that the SCC will have to operationalize in future rate cases.
The same session also rejected the governor's amendments to a separate health and labor bill. That vote is outside the energy beat but signals that the Democratic-controlled chambers are not rubber-stamping the first-year Democratic governor's line on every issue.
This vote has two readings, both correct.
The optimistic reading: Virginia now has the first statutory language in the country directing a utility regulator to determine whether data centers pay their fair share of grid costs. That is a real change. Before this session, the cost-allocation question was entirely at the SCC's discretion under general rate-making principles. After this session, the SCC is directed by statute to answer it.
The skeptical reading: “Fair share,” as a legal standard, is whatever the SCC decides it means. Utilities have deep experience arguing cost-allocation methodology before state commissions. Data centers have the financial resources to intervene on their own behalf. Consumer advocates have smaller legal budgets and narrower attention spans. The cost-shift only bites if the SCC rules the right way, and Dominion's ROE — the backstop on the profit-margin side — remains at 9.8%.
Both readings matter for states watching. The Virginia vote is progress, and the progress is limited to exactly what's in the text. For Ohio, Pennsylvania, and other states considering similar legislation: the lesson is that the cost-shift language and the profit-margin language are separable, and the political economy of a veto-session vote favors separating them. A cost-shift bill can pass on bipartisan bill-reduction rhetoric. An ROE cap runs into the utility's most organized lobbying. Plan the legislative package accordingly.
# Pennsylvania Extends Its Two Largest Coal Plants Five Years Past Retirement — Shapiro Explicitly Cites Data Center Demand
PA | Energy / Environmental / Data Centers | April 23, 2026
Source: Pennsylvania Capital-Star (States Newsroom)
Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection has proposed a consent decree that would allow the commonwealth's two largest coal-fired power plants — the Keystone Generating Station in Armstrong County and the Conemaugh Generating Station in Indiana County — to continue operating through 2032, five years past their planned retirement dates of less than three years from now. In exchange, the plants' owners agreed to upgrade ash-handling and heavy-metals wastewater controls by 2028.
Gov. Josh Shapiro (D), in the statement accompanying the proposed decree:
> “This deal ensures reliable and affordable electricity for hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses as the planned development of data centers causes the supply to tighten."
President Trump took credit on Truth Social. Environmental advocacy groups called the proposal a “bailout” issued during Earth Week. Environmental Integrity Project, Clean Air Council, and Sierra Club — the three groups that had previously filed Clean Water Act litigation over the plants' wastewater discharges — will weigh in during the public comment period; the settlement structure would resolve their pending legal claims in exchange for the upgrade commitments.
What makes this a turning point rather than another coal-extension story is the explicit framing. Shapiro did not cite reliability concerns in general, capacity-market dynamics, or a gap in forecast resource adequacy. He cited data center demand — by name — as the justification for keeping two coal plants running past their planned retirement. That is the first time a sitting governor of a major energy-producing state has attached a specific data-center rationale to a specific baseload-retirement reversal in a consent decree.
The plants:
- Keystone Generating Station — 1,711 megawatts, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania. Commissioned 1967–1968. One of the largest coal-fired plants in PJM.
- Conemaugh Generating Station — 1,711 megawatts, Indiana County, Pennsylvania. Commissioned 1970–1971. Same scale, neighboring county.
Combined nameplate capacity: 3,422 megawatts — roughly enough to serve 2.5 to 3 million average homes, or, in the load-profile terms relevant to this story, enough baseload generation to serve three to six hyperscale data centers of the 500–1,000 MW class being proposed across the Mid-Atlantic.
The DEP's public comment period on the consent decree is the procedural moment where this gets contested. Because the settlement is structured as a Clean Water Act consent decree rather than a legislative action, the venue is the agency — not Harrisburg — and the comment window is the formal opportunity to put opposing views on the record.
This is the first explicit data-center-driven coal-retirement reversal in a major state. Until this week, coal extensions were being justified on generalized reliability grounds — capacity-market tightness, PJM resource-adequacy concerns, summer-peak uncertainty. Shapiro's statement on Keystone and Conemaugh names data centers directly.
That matters for the Ohio Valley specifically. Any coal unit still operating in the region — Harrison Power Station in Ohio, Pleasants in West Virginia, the Mon Valley fleet in southwestern Pennsylvania — is now operating in a policy environment where “data-center demand” is an established justification for running past planned retirement. The argument will be made for each of them, and the Pennsylvania pattern — consent decree, environmental upgrade commitments traded for extended runtime, settlement structure that moots pending litigation — is the template that will be offered.
The question communities near these plants need to answer, in advance, is whether any environmental upgrade package can compensate for five additional years of combustion. The answer is a local one: air quality in the Ohio Valley, mercury deposition in regional waterways, employment effects on neighboring towns, property values around the plants themselves. These are not abstract. And the data-center justification — that the electricity has to come from somewhere — is true. The question is whether the somewhere should keep being Keystone, Conemaugh, and the other coal units the region has been counting on to close. That question is now on the table in Pennsylvania for real, with public comment the venue to answer it.
# The Big 3 — April 23, 2026
Today's throughline: the ratepayer-cost question moves from rhetoric into statute, settlement, and bill. A new utility-sector study puts the national number at $1.4 trillion in filed grid capex through 2030, with Ohio customers getting the first concrete preview on their April bills. Virginia lawmakers pass the country's first statutory “fair share” standard for data-center grid costs — while declining to cap their utility's profit margin. And in Pennsylvania, a governor reverses two coal-plant retirements and names data-center demand as the reason. Three states, three levels — capex, legislation, combustion — and one question: who pays.
Utilities plan $1.4 trillion in grid capital spending through 2030, and Ohio customers are getting the first concrete preview on their April bills — an AEP Ohio distribution rate hike approved this week and an Ohio Edison storm-cost spread already adding $9.67 a month to some households' power bills. The Powerlines study covering 51 investor-owned utilities shows $31 billion in rate-increase requests filed in 2025 alone that have not yet fully landed. AEP Ohio's new data-center-specific tariff includes a minimum monthly charge for new large-load customers — the first real test of whether the tariff actually holds those customers accountable for the distribution capacity they reserve. Read the full story →
Virginia lawmakers accepted Gov. Spanberger's amendment directing the State Corporation Commission to determine whether data centers pay “their fair share” of grid and capacity costs — the country's first such statutory standard — but rejected her amendments capping Dominion Energy's allowed return on equity at 9.3% and limiting underground-line burial costs to 2% of the distribution rate base. Sponsors said the original bills would have saved average residential customers $5.52/month; the substitute routes that savings through commission review rather than legislative fiat. Dominion's profit-margin lever remains untouched at 9.8%. The cost-shift principle is now in Virginia statute for the first time — but the practical effect depends on how the SCC applies “fair share” in future rate cases. Read the full story →
Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection proposed a consent decree that would extend the Keystone and Conemaugh coal plants — the state's two largest, 3,422 megawatts combined — to 2032, five years past their planned retirement, with Gov. Shapiro explicitly citing data-center demand as the reason. This is the first time a sitting governor of a major energy-producing state has attached a specific data-center rationale to a specific baseload-retirement reversal. For the Ohio Valley and every other region with coal units still running, this is the template — consent decree structure, environmental upgrades traded for extended runtime, data-center demand as the named justification. Read the full story →
Also today: In Indianapolis, the city released draft data-center zoning on April 21 while Decatur Township residents filed the state's first hyperscale data-center court challenge against Sabey Corp's $4 billion, 250-megawatt campus — two tracks of the same fight in a single city. In Maine, Gov. Mills is weighing LD 307 “without the exemption process she wanted,” per Maine Morning Star's analysis — language that signals a possible veto. In North Carolina, a property-tax constitutional amendment has emerged as a second front alongside the sales-tax-exemption repeal we covered Tuesday. And in Harrison County, Ohio, the County Improvement Corporation is framing its data-center posture as “bring their own power, don't overburden the system” — a narrow middle path between the statewide 25-megawatt constitutional amendment and unrestricted buildout. Updated signals in the companion Signals — April 23, 2026 post.
# Signals — April 23, 2026
Daily compilation of industry announcements, partnership news, and system-level signals from the energy and data-center beat. Signals are surfaced so readers know what the industry side is saying. Inclusion here is not endorsement, and jobs figures from industry press releases are noted but — in the current climate — are not by themselves sufficient to evaluate a project.
## Hyperscaler Capex, Confirmed
- Amazon and Anthropic formalized the demand-side picture this week. Amazon agreed to invest up to $25 billion more in Anthropic (on top of the $8B previously invested) — $5B now, $20B on milestones. Anthropic committed to spend $100 billion on AWS compute over the next decade, running most of it on Amazon's custom Trainium chips. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy separately confirmed Amazon expects to spend $200 billion on capital expenditures in 2026 — primarily for data centers and chips. Amazon also invested $50B in OpenAI in February; OpenAI has committed more than $100B on Amazon services. Anthropic's February funding round valued the company at $380B. (Source: NYT, April 22.)
- The takeaway for communities watching local proposals: the utility-capex and coal-extension stories above are chasing a named, contracted demand curve, not a speculative one. The systemic-risk question — what happens if Anthropic's or OpenAI's business economics fail — remains open. The near-term pipeline is not speculative.
## Industry PR
- Wärtsilä booked an order for 412 megawatts of spark-gas engines — 40 × Wärtsilä 34SG — serving an unnamed Ohio hyperscale data center. Early 2028 commercial operation targeted. The company says the modular design “enables the data center to operate off-grid and avoid long interconnection delays common to the U.S. market.” Fourth US data-center order for Wärtsilä; total US data-center engine fleet now over 1.6 gigawatts. The named project has not been disclosed; worth watching Ohio permit filings for a match.
- Natixis CIB closed a $2.6 billion syndicated letter-of-credit facility for Switch — the largest USD-denominated and first-of-its-kind in the data-center sector. The financing underwrites Switch's power procurement and provides credit for new transmission and generation tied to gigawatt-scale campus development in major U.S. markets. The financing-innovation signal matters as much as the dollar figure: a syndicated LCF structure specifically to underwrite hyperscaler power procurement is new.
- Vertiv (Westerville, OH) reported Q1 sales of $2.65 billion, up 30% year-over-year. Operating cash flow $767 million (+153%); adjusted free cash flow $653 million (+147%). Company is adding 730 jobs across Westerville headquarters and Ironton manufacturing with a $50 million capex announcement. Columbus area already hosts 130 of Ohio's 200+ data centers. Supplier-side earnings continue to climb against state-level resistance.
- Rivian and Redwood Materials announced an energy-storage partnership for Rivian's Illinois EV-battery factory — the kind of EV-battery-supply-chain consolidation that will recur as second-life battery volumes grow.
## Generation and Storage
- Kentucky — LG&E and KU are studying a 266-megawatt pumped storage project at Lewis Ridge, a former coal-mine site in southeast Kentucky near Blackmont. $1.3 billion price tag. Rye Development filed the FERC license application last June. It would be the first utility-scale pumped storage construction in the U.S. in decades. Jefferies analysts (April 16 note): “the project doesn't appear viable without a data center hyperscaler willing to pay for it.” At $4.9 million per megawatt, the project requires an anchor offtake — almost certainly a hyperscaler.
- Texas — ERCOT filed a preliminary peak-load forecast of 367,790 MW by 2032, more than four times the 2023 Texas record. Both ERCOT and the Public Utility Commission of Texas agreed the forecast is “likely higher than what demand will actually look like” and ERCOT will file a revised version. Required by SB 6 (2025), based on utility data for projects >75 MW. The forecast volatility itself is the signal — grid operators cannot yet track the buildout they're planning for.
- Texas — LCRA Timmerman Power Plant in Maxwell, Texas, brought its second unit fully online a month ahead of schedule. 380 MW natural-gas dispatchable generation, financed through the Texas Energy Fund.
- Virginia and Minnesota — municipal and distributed storage stepping up. Northern Virginia municipal utilities are adopting megawatt-scale distribution-connected batteries; Minnesota's Public Utilities Commission approved Xcel's 200 MW Capacity*Connect distributed-storage program. The distributed-generation playbook is being used — though the monopoly frame is still preserved on the utility side.
## Pipelines and Transmission
- SCOTUS ruled unanimously for Michigan AG Dana Nessel on Line 5. Enbridge waited too long to remove the 2019 state-court case to federal court; Nessel's effort to void the 1953 easement under the Straits of Mackinac returns to Ingham County. Gov. Whitmer's parallel federal case remains pending in the 6th Circuit. Procedural, but nationally consequential for pipeline-tenure fights.
- Loudoun County, VA supervisors cool to Dominion's Aspen substation. Chair Phyllis Randall and Supervisor Juli Briskman indicated Wednesday they won't support the Leesburg-area substation at Cochran Mill/Crosstrail next to the W&OD Trail, citing proximity and reluctance to add grid capacity that “incentivizes any more future use.” Board vote expected in May. Follow-up to our April 22 Loudoun coverage.
- USGS Scientific Investigations Report 2026-5011 — continuous monitoring of water temperature and turbidity at six Mountain Valley Pipeline stream crossings in southwestern Virginia, 2017–2025. Bottom line: water-temperature differences stayed under 1°C even where statistically notable during construction at Sinking Creek and upper Bottom Creek; anomalies affected 0.95% of data, median duration 2 hours. Best-documented continuous-monitoring dataset in the Appalachian pipeline record — worth bookmarking for any future pipeline-permit fight.
## Federal / Policy
- Federal court enjoins Trump administration wind-and-solar stifling. Judge Casper granted a preliminary injunction covering five DOI/Bureau of Land Management actions that (per a plaintiff-commissioned Charles River Associates report) have cancelled or delayed 57.2 gigawatts of wind/solar/hybrid/offshore capacity, jeopardizing $8.4–$25.6 billion in federal tax credits. Fourth such injunction since the administration took office.
- Trump invokes the Defense Production Act on transformers and grid equipment. The DPA memorandum calls U.S. capacity for transformers, high-voltage transmission components, advanced conductors, and substations “dangerously limited.” NEMA's Spencer Pederson tells Utility Dive distribution-transformer backlogs are running a year or more — roughly twice historical lead times. Center for Biological Diversity's Jean Su notes FY2026 has ~$323M remaining in DPA funding — “not that much.” Political signal more than a material fix; the grid-equipment bottleneck is real.
- Air Force names third ANPI microreactor site. Joint Base San Antonio (Antares Nuclear) joins Buckley SFB (Radiant Industries) and Malmstrom AFB (Westinghouse Government Services). Three different vendors, three different bases — genuine competition rather than a single-source award.
- Rep. Chellie Pingree accuses Interior Secretary Burgum of “kneecapping” wind and solar in favor of oil and gas. House Appropriations Interior-Environment Subcommittee hearing, Monday. Burgum counter-framed the 2025 policy shifts as correcting Biden-era “over-rotation.” On the record for the policy-rhetoric register.
## AI and Tech
- Florida AG James Uthmeier opens a criminal investigation of OpenAI over ChatGPT conversations with the April 17, 2025 FSU shooter. Office of Statewide Prosecution probe announced April 21. Uthmeier argues ChatGPT provided “significant advice” on weapons, ammunition, and crowd timing, and that Florida's aiding-and-abetting statute could create corporate criminal culpability even though the chatbot isn't a person. OpenAI: ChatGPT is “not responsible.” First state-AG criminal framing of an LLM as accessory, worth tracking for downstream liability precedent.
- Pennsylvania House Education Committee is drafting AI-in-schools legislation. Chair Pete Schweyer (D-Allentown): “Pennsylvania is woefully behind in AI policy.” 35 states have already issued K–12 AI guidance, per the Education Commission of the States — Pennsylvania has not. Hempfield Area Superintendent Mark Holtzman floated “a restricted list of vendors” as one structural option.
- Fermi America CFO Miles Everson resigned April 19 — four days after CEO Toby Neugebauer's abrupt departure. Filing shows no “Good Reason"; Everson remains on the board. Two co-presidents named; interim Office of the CEO structure established. Company describes the transition as a “strategic evolution” following construction, buildout, and regulatory milestones. Flag for the hyperscaler/AI-exposure watch — Fermi America is one of the larger greenfield AI-infrastructure bets in the country and is mid-construction. Two C-suite exits in four days is a systemic-risk signal worth tracking (see our April 19 Signals item).
- ASU's eighth “innovation zone” will flank the TSMC Phoenix plant. ASU President Michael Crow: the $165 billion TSMC plant is “the single most important technological opportunity in Arizona since air conditioning.” Grace O'Sullivan named VP of TSMC Partnership Initiatives. The workforce-infrastructure answer to the semiconductor supply chain.
- Apple names John Ternus CEO, effective September, after Tim Cook's 15-year run. AI-race framing — “keep Apple competitive” — is the first strategic pressure named in the handoff.
## System-Level
- PNNL Report 38601 (Oct 29, 2025) — projects AI data centers will hit 9% of U.S. electricity by 2030, using SURF and MIT Supercloud datasets to identify “low-frequency (daily) cycles and mid/high-frequency from algorithms/synchronization, risking grid oscillations.” The technical backbone behind NERC's May alert — FFT analysis of actual AI workloads confirming the dynamics grid operators are reporting in the wild.
- Greening AI Data Centers Coalition (GADCC) launched — U.S. Green Building Council, World Green Building Council, Climate Bonds Initiative, GRESB, BRE, DGNB, and four national GBCs. Objective: set credible “green” benchmarks for data centers to “cut through greenwashing.” Any benchmark the coalition produces will become a reference point in state and local siting debates.
- OECD Nuclear Energy Agency RegLab report on AI in nuclear-plant monitoring. International regulators and licensees explored a representative AI application to detect anomalies in real-time operational data — identified benefits (safety margins, early detection) and risks (explainability, defense-in-depth). Regulatory side of AI-in-nuclear catching up with the DOE particle-accelerator-control side.
- South Dakota Green Project report — state temperatures up 2°F since 1900. Climate roadmap cross-references February reporting that a utility executive said data centers “will extend fossil fuel usage.” Plains-state data-center-plus-climate framing.
- University of Arkansas study on floating solar over irrigation reservoirs — solar-leasing rates running $450–$2,500/acre vs. $50–$150 for cropland rentals, driving land-use pressure. Potential siting template for water-constrained agricultural regions.
- Pittsylvania County, VA megasite AI data-center developer pledging 2,000 permanent jobs. Cardinal News via Virginia Mercury briefs. “Permanent jobs” figure is a developer claim; the $17-million-per-permanent-job reference from Lebanon County applies.
Three of today's Signals deserve a closer read than the rest. The Amazon/Anthropic confirmation is the demand-side picture the utility capex and coal-extension stories have been chasing — real contracts, not speculative projections. The Fermi America CFO exit is the counter-story: at the top of the AI-capex curve, at least one major greenfield AI-infrastructure project is shedding two C-suite officers in four days. And the PNNL 38601 report is the technical document behind NERC's May alert — worth knowing the name of, because it will be cited in state and federal proceedings through the back half of 2026.
Signals are what the industry wants the public to hear. Paying attention is not the same as being persuaded. Reading the industry PR, the financing innovations, the regulatory pushback, and the technical reports together is how residents, reporters, and local officials develop a realistic picture of where the buildout is going and what it will cost.