Allentown, Pa.-based PPL Corp. on July 23 signed the White House’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge alongside almost 200 other utilities, cooperatives, tech firms, and governors, highlighting its existing customer protections in Pennsylvania and Kentucky.
The pledge, originally unveiled by the White House in March and its list of signatories expanded last week by the president, defines voluntary, nonbinding principles to help ensure that data centers fund energy and infrastructure associated with serving them and that existing customers are protected as demand grows.
“The customer-protection principles reflected in the Ratepayer Protection Pledge are consistent with our approach to responsible growth,” said Vincent Sorgi, president and chief executive officer of PPL Corp. “In fact, PPL and its utilities were early movers in establishing new rate classes and regulator-approved, enforceable tariffs designed to protect existing customers and help ensure that large energy users, including data centers, pay their fair share of the costs of infrastructure needed to serve them.
“Ultimately, we believe economic growth and customer protection can go hand in hand, and this pledge reflects that important balance,” Sorgi said.
PPL said that many of the principles reflected in the Ratepayer Protection Pledge are already embedded in regulator-approved tariffs and rate structures serving large energy users in its Pennsylvania and Kentucky service territories.
In Pennsylvania, for instance, PPL Electric Utilities’ recently approved LP-6 rate establishes protections ─ including long-term service commitments, minimum billing obligations, revenue protections, up-front payments for directly assignable upgrades, financial security requirements and other measures ─ designed to ensure costs associated with new demand are paid by customers creating that demand and not shifted to others.
In addition to establishing enforceable protections around cost allocation, PPL’s utilities are also focused on protecting grid reliability.
Large customer connections are planned carefully, detailed engineering and reliability studies are completed up front, high-demand interconnections are subject to regulatory oversight, and any necessary upgrades are made before service begins, helping to ensure the grid remains safe and reliable for all customers, the company said.
PPL has also advocated for policies that encourage investment in new generation resources and energy infrastructure while helping to ensure the costs of serving new demand are appropriately assigned.
At the same time, PPL also has created its joint venture with Blackstone Infrastructure to build, own, and operate new generation resources needed to serve new data center demand in PJM Interconnection territory, particularly in Pennsylvania, the company said.
The initiative is intended to support reliability, power economic development, and help improve the supply-demand balance across the region in an effort to reduce upward pressure on wholesale electricity prices over time, said PPL.
“Ultimately, we believe this growth can deliver significant long-term benefits to the communities we serve,” Sorgi said. “Moving forward, we will continue working with regulators, policymakers, and local stakeholders to meet these growing energy needs while keeping energy safe, reliable and affordable for our customers.”