PJM Interconnection is the Midwest’s electric grid operator, serving a region that includes Ohio.
DeWine said he backed efforts by the White House Domestic Energy Council and fellow governors to petition PJM to “better address supply and demand issues caused by the expanding data center sector.”
The concern is that data centers are proliferating faster than states can build new power plants.
A look at DataCenterMap.com shows that Ohio has 192 data centers.
“Both across the nation and here in Ohio, energy demand is going up as economic development projects are increasing,” DeWine said in a statement released Friday afternoon. “As governor, I support a proactive approach to increase energy supply and to protect consumers from rising costs.”
Minutes after the governor’s statement was released, the Ohio Manufacturers Association (OMA) aired its own concerns.
OMA President Ryan Augsburger said a Trump administration plan aimed at strengthening grid reliability puts “renewed focus on pricing failures inside PJM that continue to burden manufacturers.”
“Today’s announcement raises the same questions about PJM’s pricing policies we have been talking about for years,” the statement from the OMA said. “Businesses and states served by PJM produce the greatest share of U.S. GDP (gross domestic product) of any grid region, yet PJM has failed to deliver the competitive, transparent outcomes that manufacturers and the broader economy depend on.”
Also Friday, PJM said its leaders intend to take new steps to better forecast demand for electricity and to create new “avenues for new large loads to bring their own new generation or enter into a connect-and-manage framework subject to earlier curtailment” — in others, making large data centers responsible for their own power generation.
“This decision is about how PJM integrates large new loads in a way that preserves reliability for customers while creating a predictable, transparent path for growth,” David Mills, PJM chair and interim president and chief executive, said in a release. “This is not a yes-no to data centers. This is ‘How can we do this while keeping the lights on and recognizing the impact on consumers at the same time?’”
Credit: Contributed
Credit: Contributed
DataCenterMap.com last year ranked Ohio fourth in the nation for its number of power-hungry data centers, trailing Virginia, Texas and California, the Bricker Graydon law firm in Dayton has noted.
With 172 data centers at one point last year, Ohio has more data centers than neighbors Pennsylvania, Michigan and Indiana combined, the firm said.
Indiana has 75 data centers, Kentucky has 36, Pennsylvania has 85 while Michigan has 64, the site indicates.
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