Virginia orders Dominion Energy to bill data centers for their own transmission costs

Virginia regulators ordered Dominion Energy to directly assign transmission costs to data centers rather than spreading them across all ratepayers. The order follows growing scrutiny from state regulators over AI-driven electricity demand.

Why it matters: This is one of the more concrete regulatory responses yet to the backlash over AI data centers raising electricity bills for ordinary ratepayers, a grievance that has fueled hundreds of local moratoriums nationwide. Cost-allocation rules like this could become a template other states adopt, directly changing the economics of where and how AI data centers get built.