Affordability Remains Front and Center

Both leaders emphasized that electric companies are acutely focused on keeping electricity as affordable as possible for customers amid broader economic pressures.

Maloney said:
“We are very aware of the challenges around affordability, whether it’s food costs, health care, housing. We understand that energy costs are a component of that, and every one of our members has programs that help people that need different relief from their electrical bills.” 

He added: 
“Permitting reform is about affordability and customer solutions… if you look at the cost imposed by the regulatory structure that we have right now in the United States, up to 25 percent of the project cost is regulatory bureaucratic red tape, and the customer has to pay that.”

Marsh said:
“Some of our customers are Google, Meta, and Amazon, and they want to be good neighbors to our customers and our communities as well. They signed the Rate Payer Protection Pledge a few weeks ago at the White House. We have a very similar pledge that sort of marries up to that. We call it the Fair Share Plus Pledge, and the idea behind it is that the data centers are going to pay their full incremental costs of serving them, but they also are paying their fair share of our fixed costs that our existing customers are already picking up...Things like storm costs and overheads, they're sharing in those costs, and that benefit is going to our existing customers.”

Investing in a Reliable and Resilient Grid

Both speakers underscored that continued, large-scale investment in the energy grid is essential to maintaining reliability and supporting economic growth—an issue detailed in Concentric Energy Advisors’ new report on the scale of grid investment needed in the years ahead. 

Marsh said:
“Everything that we do to work, learn, and play requires electricity, and so it’s much more critical today than ever, and so resilience, reliability become really critical factors for our customers going forward.” 

Maloney said:
“The grid is 99.9 percent reliable… we all sort of take that for granted… but that point one percent when they don’t work, we got to make sure that it’s for the shortest amount of time.”

Maloney added:
“At the peak of Winter Storm Fern, there were a million people without power. Within a day or two, that power had been restored… we had 65,000 lineworkers from 44 different states that pre-positioned around the areas… to be ready to put the lights back on.”

Data Centers: Driving Growth While Protecting Customers

They emphasized that, when structured correctly, large-load growth from data centers can strengthen the grid, help manage costs, and benefit communities. 

Marsh said:
“The idea behind it is that the data centers are going to pay their full incremental costs of serving them, but they also are paying their fair share of our fixed costs that our existing customers are already picking up… and that benefit is going to our existing customers.”

Maloney said:
“If you look at it, about 23 states across the country have put these large load agreements in place that really get the data centers to pay their own way, and in these states, you’ve seen—Georgia, Arkansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Indiana, and other states—announce rate freezes or announce downward pressure on customer rates. So, I think we’re going to look back on this time period and see that data centers really… helped build a more resilient, more reliable, and ultimately more affordable grid.”

Maloney added:
“It’s going to be incumbent on… the AI and the data center community to do a much better job of being transparent when they’re coming into communities about what they’re doing, talking about the benefits of what they’re doing… transparency I think is going to be critical.”

Siting and Permitting Reform Will Lower Energy Costs

Permitting reform also was a key topic of discussion throughout the summit.

Maloney said:

“Permitting reform is about affordability and customer solutions, and we really have the opportunity. There's a lot of bipartisan interest in it. If you look at the cost imposed by the regulatory structure that we have right now in the United States, up to 25 percent of the project cost is regulatory bureaucratic red tape, and the customer has to pay that, and that's unacceptable... Ultimately if we want to talk about affordability and what the federal government can do to help lower the cost of power bills, do permitting reform. I'm optimistic we'll get there.”