Ratepayer Protection Act

What this does

This bill amends the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 to set a federal cost-recovery standard for very large electricity customers, primarily data centers. It requires that rates charged to a large-load customer, defined as a non-residential customer with at least 100 megawatts of peak demand at a single site or campus running data-storage and computing infrastructure, be designed to recover the full incremental cost of any generation, transmission, or distribution upgrade needed to serve that customer, including costs triggered if the customer later cancels its contract or stops buying power. Before making the upgrade, the utility must require the large-load customer to provide financial assurances or contributions covering its cost. State regulatory authorities and non-regulated utilities must begin considering the new standard within 1 year of enactment and complete a determination within 2 years. Those deadlines do not apply to a utility in a state that, before enactment, already implemented the standard or a comparable one, already held a proceeding to consider it, or already had its legislature vote on it.