New York’s Brooklyn-Queens Demand Management program avoided a $1.2 billion substation by contracting targeted efficiency, demand response, and distributed resources where the feeder was actually constrained—a template that now exists precisely so regulators can buy the cheapest reliability, not just the largest asset.⁹
Fix the incentives that keep pushing utilities toward concrete over code. Hawai‘i’s performance-based regulation lets utilities earn for outcomes—affordability, reliability, interconnection speed—rather than only for capital deployed, chipping away at the old bias that makes every problem look like a substation.¹⁰ And be honest about risk. In high-fire or high-wind corridors, targeted undergrounding and sectionalizing can be cheaper than a decade of emergency restorations and ballooning insurance pools; California’s proceedings now spell out just how much of the bill is wildfire-driven and where surgical hardening beats blanket burial.¹¹ ²
Back in the Loudoun gym, the maps came down and the meeting adjourned. Outside, the substation hummed beneath a haze of cicadas. The truth is less satisfying than a villain, but more useful for a fix: data centers are neither automatic scapegoats nor innocent bystanders. The wires are where the money is. The policy should follow. In New England cafés and Virginia gymnasiums alike, the arithmetic is the same: spread fixed costs wisely, buy flexibility before concrete, and point the next dollar at the mile of line most likely to fail. Do that, and the headline everyone wants—lower, steadier bills—will finally read like common sense rather than wishful thinking.
Blame travels faster than electrons; reform should travel faster than blame.
Bibliography
1. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and The Brattle Group. Retail Electricity Price Trends and Drivers. October 2025. National synthesis showing that a 10% load increase is associated with a ~0.6¢/kWh decrease in average prices via fixed-cost dilution.
2. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. California Case Study. 2025. Attributes ~40% of recent price increases to wildfire-related costs (mitigation and insurance).
3. U.S. Department of Energy & National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Transformer Supply Chain/Shortage Brief. 2024. Summarizes price increases (~60–80% since 2020) and multi-year backlogs.
4. Houston Chronicle. Coverage of Hurricane Beryl restoration and cost recovery, July 2024—local reporting on securitization debates and citizen testimony.
5. PJM Interconnection. Base Residual Auction Results for 2025/2026 Delivery Year. 2025. Documents clearing-price increases across constrained zones.
6. Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (Virginia). Data Centers in Virginia: Impacts and Policy Options. 2025. Recommends direct assignment, dedicated classes, minimum bills, and siting alignment.
7. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Order No.881 (Ambient-Adjusted Line Ratings Compliance, due July 2025) and DLR ANOPR. 2023–2025. Establishes rating reforms to increase transfer capability.
8. Reuters. “Google strikes peak-shifting agreements with Indiana Michigan Power and TVA,” 2025—utility contracts that make AI workloads dispatchable.
9. Consolidated Edison. Brooklyn-Queens Demand Management Program records, 2017–2020. Portfolio that deferred a ~$1.2B substation expansion through targeted non-wires resources.
10. Hawai‘i Public Utilities Commission. Performance-Based Regulation Framework. 2023. Multi-year rate plan and performance incentives linking utility earnings to outcomes.
11. California Public Utilities Commission. Wildfire Cost Drivers & Mitigation Plans. 2025. Filings that quantify wildfire cost shares and prioritize targeted hardening.
12. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and The Brattle Group. National Synthesis and State Case Studies (including North Dakota and Virginia). 2025. Documents ND demand increase with real-price decline and Virginia’s mixed pattern.