(TNND) \u2014 More data center developers and others are jumping on board with the Trump administration’s efforts to protect everyday Americans from shouldering higher electricity rates from the rapid build-out of artificial intelligence infrastructure.<\/p>\n
The administration announced that more than 200 additional utilities, data center developers<\/a>, cooperatives, and states have signed on to its Ratepayer Protection Pledge<\/a>.<\/p>\n The technology companies and developers are making voluntary pledges to build and pay for the increased electricity production they need.<\/p>\n Trump gave an update Thursday to the Ratepayer Protection Pledge, which was unveiled in early March<\/a> with commitments from Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle, and xAI.<\/p>\n \u201cWith the Trump administration’s Ratepayer Protection plan, the American innovators and consumers thrive to win together, because we’re insisting that AI data centers and big tech companies pay their own way,\u201d Trump said at an event. \u201cAnd that’s what they’re doing. And they’re happy to do it, because this way, they’re going to be able to function and function brilliantly. They’re going to have a lot of electricity left over, and they’ll put that into the grid. So, we’ll actually end up with more electricity. The rates are going to go down. And as president, I’ve always said that America’s goal must be to dominate the future. And that includes being the No. 1 superpower in artificial intelligence.”<\/p>\n The White House said the Ratepayer Protection Pledge now covers 80% of power delivered to American homes and businesses. And the administration said the plan protects 263 million Americans when a data center is built nearby.<\/p>\n For example, the White House pointed to a deal between Entergy and Amazon<\/a> in Mississippi that\u2019s supposed to generate roughly $2 billion in total customer benefits, including full coverage of new transmission and related costs.<\/p>\n And in Michigan, the White House said DTE Energy\u2019s agreements with Google<\/a> and Oracle<\/a> should produce billions in customer savings, with the tech companies covering their full energy and capacity costs.<\/p>\n Mark Muro<\/a>, a senior fellow at Brookings Metro who researches the digital economy, said data center developers have been seeing the backlash at the local level for a while. But the Ratepayer Protection Pledge amplifies those concerns on a national scale.<\/p>\n Muro said the White House\u2019s plan can help American households, even if he doesn\u2019t see it as breaking new ground.<\/p>\n Muro said some of the big tech companies were already taking steps, before the White House stepped in, to shield nearby residents from higher power bills when they build a data center.<\/p>\n Microsoft, for example, released a multipoint plan back in January<\/a> for \u201ccommunity first\u201d AI development in which the company said it would pay its way to ensure data centers don\u2019t increase power bills for other customers.<\/p>\n But Muro said the \u201cvolume has really been turned up lately\u201d over the data center concerns.<\/p>\n \u201cIt really makes clear how broad and bipartisan and shared across blue places and red places is the backlash against these centers,\u201d Muro said.<\/p>\n Data centers are power hungry, and that\u2019s caused concerns among everyday utility customers who fear the increased demand is increasing their monthly bills.<\/p>\n Hannah Wiseman, a professor of law at Penn State who focuses on energy law and related matters, said in a recent Q&A that a large data center can use the same amount of electricity<\/a> as that of a small or medium-sized city, or around 80,000 houses.<\/p>\n Bloomberg News analysis<\/a> published last fall found that electricity costs increased as much as 267% over the previous five years in places near significant data center activity.<\/p>\n By comparison, the overall price of electricity has increased<\/a> about 38% over the last five years in the U.S., according to the government\u2019s consumer price index.<\/p>\n And a 2024 report from the U.S. Department of Energy found that domestic energy usage from data centers is expected to double or triple<\/a> by 2028.<\/p>\n More of these energy-chugging data centers are coming online across the country.<\/p>\n Data from Aterio<\/a> shows there are already over 2,000 data centers operating in the U.S., with nearly 800 more under construction and nearly 4,000 more announced.<\/p>\n CBRE, the world\u2019s largest commercial real estate services and investment firm, recently said the data center market set records<\/a> across nearly every major indicator last year. And it said today’s titans of technology have embarked on an AI build-out that could eclipse the railroad expansion<\/a> of the 1850s in relative scale.<\/p>\n