{"id":116054,"date":"2026-03-08T21:35:03","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T00:35:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tech.einnews.com\/article\/898178847"},"modified":"2026-03-08T21:35:03","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T00:35:03","slug":"tech-giants-signed-pledge-to-pay-for-data-center-power-but-it-doesnt-apply-to-3-arizona-projects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/2026\/03\/08\/tech-giants-signed-pledge-to-pay-for-data-center-power-but-it-doesnt-apply-to-3-arizona-projects\/","title":{"rendered":"Tech giants signed pledge to pay for data center power. But it doesn’t apply to 3 Arizona projects"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Prodded by President Donald Trump, top technology companies signed a \u201cratepayer protection pledge\u201d this week, committing to ensure that the explosion of data centers won\u2019t drive up consumer energy costs.<\/p>\n

Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, xAI, Oracle and Amazon Web Services signed on. But the three largest data centers in Arizona are being developed by companies that didn\u2019t sign the pledge, and consumer advocates and others are skeptical about the impact of Trump\u2019s initiative.<\/p>\n

\u201cArizona\u2019s booming data center industry must work for the people of our state, not the other way around,\u201d Gov. Katie Hobbs\u2019 spokeswoman Liliana Soto said by email. \u201cPresident Trump\u2019s proposal is interesting in concept, but currently there are too many unknowns to make any type of assessment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump unveiled the pledge during his Feb. 24 State of the Union<\/a> address.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe tech companies and the data centers will be able to get the electricity they need, all without driving up the cost for consumers,\u201d he said at a White House meeting Wednesday with tech executives. \u201cThe big tech companies are making five important commitments to keep utility prices down for American consumers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those commitments<\/a>: building, bringing or buying new power supply; paying to upgrade power delivery infrastructure; paying for power they have access to whether they use it or not; investing in local job creation and workforce development; and contributing to electric grid and community resilience.<\/p>\n

But Tom Prezelski, senior political advisor at Rural Arizona Action, said \u201cthe president is not in a position to enforce any of that\u201d and \u201cwhere things really matter is at the level of the Arizona Corporation Commission\u201d and other state and local agencies with direct enforcement authority.<\/p>\n

\u201cUtilities are allowed a modest profit, so if they have to eat a little bit of their profits in order to expand capacity, they should do that,\u201d Prezelski said. \u201cAnd that’s something that this corporation commission doesn’t seem willing to do right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The developers behind the largest data center projects in Arizona \u2013 Vermaland LLC, Tract and EdgeCore Digital Infrastructure \u2013 did not respond to requests for comment on Trump\u2019s pledge and the idea of shielding ratepayers from costs of expanding capacity to meet their demands.<\/p>\n

At the Arizona Corporate Commission, which regulates utilities, the chair, Kevin Thompson, echoed Trump\u2019s stance that other customers should be shielded from high costs related to data center expansion.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ve said since Day 1 that development has to pay for itself,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cAll growth, regardless of what it is \u2026 they have to pay their own way. We’re not going to put that cost onto the backs of the residential and small business consumers.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he said, his agency can only \u201cmitigate the impact as much as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

The largest data center currently planned in Arizona will be south of Eloy. Vermaland, which is developing the 3 gigawatt project, has no obligation to pay for the required expansion of electric capacity, according to opponents<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s not the excess power itself that is driving up costs for everybody else. It’s the investment they have to make in expanding their capacity,\u201d Prezelski said.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because utilities pass infrastructure costs to customers when setting rates.<\/p>\n

Prezelski wants ironclad assurances that data center developers and the ACC won\u2019t pass those costs to other ratepayers. \u201cAll the new lines, the new generator contracts with other utilities, that’s all very expensive,\u201d he said. \u201cThose costs have to be spread out in such a way that we’re not leaning on residential ratepayers to pay for all that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arizona Public Service, the state\u2019s largest energy provider, is seeking a 14% rate increase<\/a> on average, with residential customers facing a 16% increase and data centers paying 30% to 45% more.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the utilities build extra capacity, they’re going to have to get that paid for somehow,\u201d Prezelski said.<\/p>\n

Thompson noted that the rate increases would allow the APS to recoup money it already invested. \u201cWhat they’re requesting is just to recover dollars that they spent a year ago,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

By 2030, according to the Electric Power Research Institute<\/a>, data centers in Arizona could consume more than 20% of power used statewide.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a global tech leader in AI, taxpayers shouldn\u2019t keep subsidizing this highly profitable industry,\u201d said Soto, the governor\u2019s aide.<\/p>\n

This article<\/a> first appeared on Cronkite News<\/a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/strong> <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

… by President Donald Trump, top technology<\/span> companies signed a \u00e2\u0080\u009cratepayer protection pledge … 24 State of the Union address. \u00e2\u0080\u009cThe tech<\/span> companies and the data centers will … House meeting Wednesday with tech<\/span> executives. \u00e2\u0080\u009cThe big tech<\/span> companies are making five …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116054\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}