A Republican senator has introduced a bill in the US Senate that would impose federal controls on data centers' access to the grid.

The POWER Up Act was proposed by Senator Cynthia Lummis and, if passed, would establish clear, uniform federal rules for how large loads on the grid connect to the interstate electrical transmission system.

“When a facility wants to draw as much power as a city, that is not an ordinary retail question. It is a grid question,” said Lummis. “Ratepayers need a clear process, informed by best practices, clear rules, and clear accountability. That is what this bill provides. America is going to need more power for data centers, advanced manufacturing, and the next generation of industry. The question is whether we handle that growth with clear rules and reliable planning, or with confusion and delay. Massive demand is here, and America needs a framework that supports investment in our communities while protecting the grid and the people who rely on it every day.”

The bill defines a "large load facility" as any facility or group of co-located facilities with a projected peak demand of 100MW or more, and brings the interconnection of such loads to the transmission system under the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) existing "just and reasonable" standard.

It requires FERC to issue a final rule within 18 months establishing standardized procedures for large load interconnection, including provisions for hybrid facilities that combine on-site generation with grid-connected load at a single point of interconnection. FERC retains the ability to adjust the 100MW threshold by rule if grid reliability demands it.

State and local authority over siting, permitting, construction, retail rates, local distribution, and generation is explicitly preserved. The bill applies only to the transmission-level connection.

The bill is one of the first at the federal level to seek to set federal controls on how data centers connect to the grid. Several states have already imposed new rate classes for large load data centers to mitigate their impact on other ratepayers. Recent examples include Oklahoma and Florida, which both saw new ratepayer legislation signed into law over the last year.

Other states to see similar rules proposed and passed include Ohio, North Carolina, and Virginia, to name a few.

DCD did a deep dive into the growth of new data center rate classes in our latest magazine. Read for free here.