“In most states, companies can only purchase power directly from the grid or provide their own power. In order to create an off-grid utility, the would-be utility needs to be approved by the state public utility commission. This requirement effectively prohibits the creation of new, off-grid utilities that can provide power to multiple industrial customers with the prices negotiated directly between the utility and their customers. Travis Fisher and Glen Lyons call this innovative arrangement Consumer Regulated Electricity (CRE). With CRE, new data centers and manufacturing could more readily be built off-grid, addressing concerns that industrial demand will generate costs that will be socialized and passed on to ratepayers. This would help to resolve issues under certain market structures, like in the PJM Interconnection, where the capacity market does socialize costs that should be borne directly by large industrial loads.18 In January 2026, Senator Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) introduced the Decentralized Access to Technology Alternatives Act (DATA Act) to help make CRE a viable option. The DATA Act would exempt islanded off-grid utilities serving new customers from federal utility regulation that will otherwise inhibit states’ ability to experiment with CRE.”
