Sponsors (14)
The bill speeds and prioritizes interconnection for large zero‑emission and demand‑reducing customers—protecting other ratepayers by shifting upgrade costs onto those customers and encouraging storage/efficiency—while shifting significant financial risk to those large customers, potentially raising industrial energy costs, discouraging some electrification of incumbent sites, and creating fairness and administrative burdens.
Large industrial or commercial projects that procure or generate zero-emission energy will get prioritized interconnection, speeding deployment of clean energy at those sites and reducing local emissions and pollution exposure.
Utilities can recover grid upgrade costs from the large load facilities that trigger them, reducing cross-subsidization and protecting other ratepayers from paying for upgrades driven by a small set of high-demand customers.
Prioritizing customers that adopt demand-reduction measures (onsite storage, energy efficiency, demand response) encourages those investments, which can lower peak grid stress and reduce the scale or cost of system upgrades.
Companies classified as large load facilities may be required to pay all upgrade costs up front and could face large stranded-cost liabilities if their demand later falls, shifting significant financial risk onto those businesses.
Passing upgrade costs onto a class of large customers could raise industrial electricity prices, making expansion or site selection more expensive and potentially deterring investment or jobs.
Excluding existing facilities whose added demand comes from electrification or GHG-reduction measures from the prioritized category could deter incumbent plants from electrifying, slowing emissions reductions at existing industrial sites.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Creates a new PURPA class for facilities >75 MW, requires utilities to recover grid-upgrade costs from that class, prioritizes customers who adopt demand-reduction and zero-emission supply, and sets state rulemaking timelines.
Introduced January 14, 2026 by Mike Levin · Last progress January 14, 2026
Creates a new regulatory class for very large electricity customers and requires utilities and state regulators to set standards for how those loads are served. It defines "large load facility" (single-site or aggregated demand over 75 MW), excludes certain electrification-driven increases, defines eligible zero-emission energy sources, and directs utilities to fully recover the cost of any grid upgrades made to serve that class even if demand later falls. Also requires utilities to prioritize service requests from customers who commit to demand-reduction measures (efficiency, onsite storage, demand response) and to procuring or generating zero-emission electricity within the same balancing authority. State regulatory authorities and nonregulated utilities must consider and complete new standards on a 1- to 2-year timeline and report determinations to specified congressional committees; states with comparable standards already in place are exempt. Cross-references in existing statute are updated accordingly. The Act takes effect on enactment unless another provision specifies otherwise.