US utility American Electric Power (AEP) Ohio has cut its data center demand by half.

According to a report from Biz Journal, the utility has recently updated its pipeline of interconnection requests, with demand reportedly falling from more than 30GW of requests to 13GW.

In the September filing, AEP Ohio said that it had received requests to formally study 36 data center sites, with 32 located in Central Ohio, for a total of 9.8GW.

Responding to the news, an AEP Ohio spokesperson told DCD that the study showed “that the data center tariff is working."

"The tariff, through those financial commitments, ensures that data center operators are financially incentivized to accurately estimate their electricity needs. Those financial commitments also protect AEP Ohio’s customers from shouldering the costs of infrastructure investments required to meet growing demand from data centers," read the statement.

In July, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) approved a settlement that required data centers to pay for a portion of their energy requests, even if the electricity is not ultimately needed.

The settlement agreement was initially proposed last October. It requires new data center customers to pay for a minimum of 85 percent of the energy they say they need each month, even if they use less, to cover the cost of the infrastructure required to bring electricity to those facilities.

For example, if a data center required 1GW of power, it would be charged for at least 850MW, even if it doesn’t end up using it. The requirements are expected to be in place for 12 years, and according to AEP Ohio, they will permit the utility to end the moratorium on new central Ohio data center agreements.

The fall in requests prompted the Ohio Manufacturers Association to call AEP Ohio’s initial numbers “inflated.”

The OMA subsequently filed a motion with PUCO to open an investigation. "The OMA has reason to believe load forecasts are inflated, causing customers to pay more without offsetting benefits," the group said in a statement.

AEP acknowledged this inflation, arguing that through the tariff, the utility was able to remove "the most speculative or uncertain data center projects" that "did not submit load study requests."

The utility went on to state that the " number may reduce further — and become more accurate — as AEP Ohio continues the data center tariff process by presenting binding contracts for data centers to sign."

An AEP Ohio spokesperson went on to state that the utility had been "very clear in the data center tariff case" that many projects in the queue "could be duplicative or speculative."

AEP Ohio’s parent company, American Electric Power, reported in July that it had a pipeline of 18GW of incremental data center load growth through 2029, backed by signed customer agreements. It's unclear whether the revisions in Ohio have impacted this projection. DCD has contacted the utility for further information.