Uploaded November 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Technology companies are looking to secure electricity for their new power-hungry data centers. To provide energy to these new facilities, electric utilities are expanding their systems with new power plants and transmission lines. Because utilities profit by building infrastructure, serving data centers is a lucrative opportunity that is incentivizing utilities to offer attractive rates to Big Tech companies.
In this Energy Policy Seminar, Ari Peskoe, Director of the Electricity Law Initiative at the Harvard Law School Environmental and Energy Law Program, presented a recent paper that explains how utilities are forcing ratepayers to fund discounted rates for data centers. More info: belfercenter.org/event/extracting-profits-public-how-utility-ratepayers-are-paying-big-techs-power
Technology companies are looking to secure electricity for their new power-hungry data centers. To provide energy to these new facilities, electric utilities are expanding their systems with new power plants and transmission lines. Because utilities profit by building infrastructure, serving data centers is a lucrative opportunity that is incentivizing utilities to offer attractive rates to Big Tech companies.
In this Energy Policy Seminar, Ari Peskoe, Director of the Electricity Law Initiative at the Harvard Law School Environmental and Energy Law Program, presented a recent paper that explains how utilities are forcing ratepayers to fund discounted rates for data centers. More info: belfercenter.org/event/extracting-profits-public-how-utility-ratepayers-are-paying-big-techs-power
