Data Center Fair Share Act

The "Data Center Fair Share Act" amends the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 to establish new federal standards for electric utilities regarding large-load customers. These standards mandate that electric utilities design rates to recover the full, incremental costs of any generation, transmission, or distribution upgrades specifically required to serve these high-demand customers. This cost recovery must occur even if the large-load customer later terminates their service agreement.

Before undertaking such upgrades, utilities must either require the large-load customer to cover the full costs through a contribution in aid of construction or assign these costs to a class of large-load customers. A "large-load customer" is defined as a non-residential electric consumer requesting service for facilities with a peak electric demand of 100 megawatts or more at a single site or campus. States are required to commence consideration of these new standards within one year and complete their implementation within two years of the bill's enactment, unless they have already adopted comparable standards. To ensure compliance, the bill includes a significant enforcement mechanism: any state that fails to implement these federal standards will have 100 percent of its federal highway funds withheld.