US tech firms pledge at White House to bear costs of energy for datacenters

"The so-called Ratepayer Protection Pledge was first announced by Trump in his State of the Union address, and comes as communities and state legislators increase scrutiny of rapidly proliferating datacenters. Datacenters consume vast amounts of electricity to run server racks and cooling systems for the development of technologies such as artificial intelligence."

"The pledge includes a commitment by technology companies to bring or buy electricity supplies for their datacenters, either from new power plants or existing plants with expanded output capacity. It also includes commitments from big tech to pay for upgrades to power delivery systems and to enter special electricity rate agreements with utilities."

"This means that the tech companies and the datacenters will be able to get the electricity they need, all without driving up electricity costs for consumers. This is a historic win for countless American families and we'll also make our electricity grid stronger and more resilient than ever before."

Google, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and AI companies signed the Ratepayer Protection Pledge at the White House, committing to bear costs for new electricity generation powering their datacenters. The agreement aims to prevent datacenter expansion from driving up electricity costs for households and small businesses while supporting grid resilience. Tech companies committed to securing electricity from new or expanded power plants, funding power delivery system upgrades, and negotiating special rate agreements with utilities. This pledge addresses growing community opposition to datacenter projects across multiple states and represents an effort to gain local support for future datacenter development.

Read at www.theguardian.com