Don’t want data centers spiking your power bill? Let them build their own grid
“Generally, it is good public policy to get out of the way of progress if it avoids harming others, and an islanded system imposes no costs on other ratepayers, adds no strain to the regional grid, and cannot shift a dollar of stranded infrastructure onto a family in Lexington or a factory in Bowling Green, because it never touches their wires.
We call this Consumer-Regulated Electricity (CRE), and it rests on three conditions: the system must be electrically islanded from the existing regulated grid, serve only sophisticated customers who voluntarily contract for service, and obey all the other environmental and safety laws already on the books.
The premise of a Public Service Commission is that ordinary consumers need protections from utilities acting as natural monopolies—these grids are inherently not natural monopolies, and these consumers are multi-billion-dollar companies. Letting these large consumers trade bureaucratic protection for speed-to-market is a win for all electricity customers.”
