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Washington, D.C. — According to reporting, more utility and technology companies will sign onto a nonbinding pledge to keep electricity costs down and protect ratepayers from skyrocketing bills driven by data centers’ energy demands.
Despite what is written in the pledge, there has been minimal tangible progress made to address the impact on ratepayers from artificial intelligence data centers. Duke Energy—one of the companies that signed the pledge—scored an ‘F’ on Sierra Club’s Dirty Truth Report for keeping costly coal online and building more expensive gas plants on the dime of everyday ratepayers.
Sierra Club’s national gas tracker also shows a staggering increase in planned gas plants—nearly 50 percent more than what is currently online—largely driven by unfettered data center demand and lacking regulatory protections to ensure energy costs aren’t being shifted from Big Tech companies to families and small businesses. Despite evidence that clean energy is the lowest cost, lowest risk pathway for meeting responsible data center demand, the Trump administration has slashed billions of dollars in funding for clean energy projects.
