The costs of connecting AI data centers to the grid are increasingly landing on the people who didn’t create the demand. Across the PJM region, ratepayers — not the tech companies driving the growth — are covering the vast majority of the transmission upgrades data centers require. In Pennsylvania alone, that meant roughly $492 million embedded in residents’ electric bills in a single year.
For small businesses, energy isn’t a line item you can cut when prices rise. It’s the cost of keeping the lights on, the ovens hot, and the machines running. When utility bills climb, small businesses face impossible choices: raise prices, freeze hiring, cut hours, or absorb the loss.
But this story isn’t only about rising costs. It’s also about opportunity, and about who gets a seat at the table when decisions are made. Pennsylvania and other states have real tools to make growth work for everyone: fair cost-allocation rules, community benefit agreements, and small business advocates who fight for Main Street. What’s missing is the pressure to use them.
That’s where you come in. Decision-makers need to hear directly from the business owners living this. Your story — in your words — is what turns a policy debate into a human one.
