Josh Shapiro seeks to join PPL rate complaint before Pennsylvania PUC
The Oct. 15 petition asks to participate in the PUC case over transmission costs and interruptible service for large data centres.
Ines Halvorsen
On Oct. 15, Gov. Josh Shapiro petitioned to join a rate complaint involving PPL Electric Utilities, part of PPL Corporation NYSEPPL, the first such gubernatorial intervention in at least 15 years, his office said. The Oct. 2 complaint seeks to charge data centres all transmission network upgrade costs they cause.
Shapiro's petition to the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission seeks formal party status in the Office of Consumer Advocate's case, docket C-2026-3065756. PPL Electric is a Pennsylvania electricity distribution company. Shapiro supports changes to rates and reliability obligations; his petition is a request to participate, rather than a commission decision imposing those changes.
PPL shares traded at US$35.07 on the NYSE at 1:42 p.m. EDT on Oct. 16, according to Google Finance's NYSEPPL page.
For shareholders, the requested changes concern which customers would pay transmission and regional reliability costs, and the conditions under which large data centres would receive electricity. The governor supports a separate data-centre customer class and allocating costs caused by its demand to that class.
"Pennsylvanians should not be left paying higher electric bills because of data center developers," Shapiro said in the Oct. 16 announcement.
The consumer advocate alleges PPL's existing rates and service expose other customers to costs caused by large data centres and to possible interruptions when demand exceeds supply. The governor agrees that the existing LP-6 large-load rate schedule does not adequately protect customers.
Petition Supports Interruptible Rates For Data Centres
The petition backs the consumer advocate's requests for interruptible rates for large data centres, along with interconnection and load-shedding tariff provisions to protect existing customers. It also supports assigning data centres costs associated with regional reliability procurement and resource adequacy programs.
The filing ties those requests to the governor's executive order signed Aug. 18. His Oct. 16 announcement says the order directs his energy-affordability counsel to develop protocols prioritizing data-centre curtailment when the grid is stressed.
Commonwealth executive agencies are themselves PPL customers and large electricity users, which the governor cites as a direct interest in the case.
PPL presents its existing safeguards differently. On its customer-protection page, read on Oct. 16, it lists long-term service agreements, upfront payments for certain upgrades, financial security, minimum usage commitments and exit-fee protections. It says connections proceed only after engineering studies confirm reliability will be maintained.
In a separate Sept. 14 petition, PPL requested approval for a Customer Protection Transmission Rider. It proposes allocating transmission costs the company would not have incurred without large-load connections to its LP-6 customers, alongside changes to other transmission and supply charges.
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A next deadline or hearing date in the complaint proceeding could not be verified from the docket material available.
For its separate transmission-rider proceeding, PPL requested commission consideration at the June 10, 2027 public meeting, ahead of implementation targeted for the first quarter of 2028. That requested timetable applies to PPL's proposal, rather than the governor's intervention petition.
