Major US utility American Electric Power (AEP) has reported a pipeline of 18GW of incremental data center load growth through 2029, backed by signed customer agreements.

In its Q2 earnings report, the utility reported a 14 percent year-over-year growth in operating earnings per share, driven primarily by new data center growth, which accounts for the bulk of the total incremental load growth of 24GW.

Due to the skyrocketing growth, the company now has more than 190GW active in its interconnection queue. As a result, it has raised its five-year capital plan by 30 percent to $70 billion, with 50 percent earmarked for transmission, 40 percent for generation, and 10 percent for distribution.

Commenting on the growth, AEP CEO Bill Fehrman emphasized that all of the 24GW of new industrial capacity is “backed by signed customer agreements, protecting us from changes in usage-driven volatility.”

Fehrman went on to say that he believes “this amount of committed capacity is differential compared to almost any other utility, and we are well prepared to deliver on this for our customers and our states.”

In addition, the utility reported that it had added more than 4GW of incremental peak demand since last year, largely due to new data centers coming online in Indiana, Ohio, and Texas.

Fehrman said that the growth was due to the AEP area being “extremely attractive for data centers. We have ample fiber capacity, we have [a] good supply of water, and of course, with having the largest transmission system in the country [including] the 765kV backbone, we're incredibly well positioned to attract the data centers.”

Despite the favorable conditions, Fehrman admitted that the utility had an “incredible backlog of these data centers.”

As a result, AEP has prioritized offering “innovative solutions so that they can come online quicker.” Fehrman highlighted agreements with Amazon Web Services and Cologix to provide them with on-site power from Bloom-supplied Solid Oxide Fuel Cells. AEP Ohio signed a deal with Bloom last year for up to 1GW of off-site power for data centers.

While AEP reported significant load growth, the utility also stressed the importance of the new data center tariff legislation in protecting rate payers. Earlier this month, Ohio regulators approved new rules that would require 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 infrastructure required to bring electricity to those facilities.

Fehrman stressed that the new rules “provide assurances that there will be reliable electric grid infrastructure to deliver the power we all count on while keeping costs as low as possible for all customers.”

Fehrman went on to comment on the growth of data centers compared to cryptocurrency mining across the utility’s footprint. He noted that the ERCOT market is the only one within AEP’s coverage area where crypto growth is outpacing data center growth.

“ERCOT is probably the more interesting one, which is where we see about 2GW on data centers, but about 5GW on crypto,” said Fehrman.

AEP is one of the country’s biggest electric utility companies, serving 11 US states, including data center hotspots Ohio and Texas. AEP has seven operating companies covering Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia.