Electric bills are now 18% higher today than they were when President Trump took office. And instead of helping homeowners invest in low-cost solar or energy efficiency to lower their bills, Trump continues to raise costs for families and give handouts to his Big Polluter CEO and billionaire friends by giving $700 million in taxpayer dollars to dirty, dangerous, expensive coal.
The good news is that the Pennsylvania State House – with its one-vote pro-environment majority – is putting people ahead of billionaires (and a trillionaire).
Here’s a snapshot of the policies advancing in the Pennsylvania State House that will help lower our costs and keep data centers in check.
PA State House Passes Bill to Create a Virtual Power Plant Program in Pennsylvania (HB 2264)
The Virtual Power Plant legislation, passed by the State House and introduced by Rep. Nate Davidson, will help Pennsylvania families lower their electricity bills – but it’s up to the State Senate to pass it.
What’s a virtual power plant?
A virtual power plant (VPP) is a network of connected energy resources—such as home batteries, smart thermostats, electric vehicles, and solar panels—that work together like a single power plant. By coordinating when these devices use, store, or send electricity to the grid, virtual power plants can help meet demand during periods of high energy use. Customers who opt in can save hundreds of dollars on their energy bills.
Virtual power plants help reduce strain on the electric grid, lower costs for consumers, and can help prevent blackouts. Virtual power plants also make it easier to integrate more clean energy and reduce pollution without building expensive new power plants or transmission lines.
No wonder 37 states and the District of Columbia already have at least one virtual power plant program for customers to take advantage of.
PA State House Committee Passes Bill to Require Utilities to Use Large-Scale Batteries to Lower Costs and Improve Reliability
Data centers use huge amounts of energy, and the power sources in Pennsylvania won’t produce nearly enough electricity to meet demand.
The Grid-Scale Battery Storage bill, HB 2380, introduced by Rep. Nikki Rivera and passed in the Energy Committee, would require Pennsylvania utilities to create battery storage to house electricity from solar, wind, hydroelectric and thermal power plants and release it when needed. Storage battery systems can improve the grid's performance and is cheaper than building new transmission lines.
Taking advantage of renewable sources of energy and storing that energy in batteries costs less and will help lower our electricity bills!
PA State House Committee Passes Bill to End NDAs Between Data Centers and Municipalities
Data centers are expanding rapidly across Pennsylvania and have a huge impact on the communities where they’re built.
So why are data centers allowed to set up shop without any sort of protections in place for surrounding communities and sign non-disclosure agreements to keep key details about what they hope to build hidden from the public?
Data centers can use as much energy as an entire city, plus they can consume huge amounts of water and be really noisy. Pennsylvanians deserve to know if a data center is planning on coming to their community and what that project would look like.
The Data Center Transparency Bill, HB 2359 introduced by Rep. Joe Ciresi and passed by the State House Energy Committee, would put an end to data centers entering into secretive NDAs with local governments and require data centers to submit a community protection plan detailing the resources they’d need to build and operate their facility.
Now we need your help to get it the attention it needs to get scheduled for a vote and passes in the State House!