With how things are trending, if I were a large power consumer, connecting to the grid would be a last resort.

Requiring Data Centers To Pay Their Fair Share and Streamlining Interconnections for Job-Creating Businesses

As energy demand surges across the state, New York State will advance a new initiative with a dual mandate: providing greater certainty and predictability for businesses seeking to invest in New York while ensuring that data centers pay their fair share. Unlike other sectors, data centers consume massive amounts of finite resources and place an unprecedented strain on the electric grid without creating many jobs in the process. Governor Hochul is taking action to ensure every day New Yorkers do not subsidize this energy intensive industry. To stop planning uncertainty caused by “phantom loads” and prevent rising costs for everyday consumers, the State will enforce a simple standard: these industries must pay more; if they do not, they must supply their own energy.

To attract responsible new businesses, give them the certainty they need to invest in New York, and protect the ratepayer, Governor Hochul will tap the Department of Public Service to launch a new initiative, Energize NY Development, with the goal of modernizing how large energy users connect to the grid, making it faster and more predictable, but it comes with strict conditions to protect ratepayers. This effort will streamline interconnection rules and improve transparency around grid upgrades while explicitly requiring that projects driving exceptional demand without exceptional job creation or other benefits cover the costs they create, or supply their own energy. By accelerating responsible development and requiring data centers to shoulder their own burden, Energize NY Development will support job creation, industry growth and economic investment across the State while sparing ratepayers additional pressure on utility bills.