Amazon Grid Proposal Tests Who Pays For AI Data-Centre Lines
Data Center Knowledge reported that Amazon asked Virginia regulators to let hyperscale data-centre customers voluntarily fund project-specific transmission upgrades, while Dominion argued the issue belongs in a separate proceeding.
Amazon wants Virginia’s largest data-centre operators to fund transmission lines built specifically for their campuses instead of spreading every expansion cost across utility customers.
Data Center Knowledge reported that the proposal entered the Virginia State Corporation Commission’s review of Dominion Energy’s Rider T1 cost recovery.
Amazon is asking for project-specific contributions in aid of construction, or CIAC.
Amazon Wants CIAC For Project-Specific Transmission
Amazon's witness, Cameron Brooks of E9 Insight, testified that voluntary transmission CIAC could shift stranded-asset risk to the data-centre customers behind the new load.
In his evidence, the structure would let those customers pay for facilities serving their campuses while reducing costs for other ratepayers.
The filing dispute centres on AI campuses that are changing both the size and timing of utility planning.
Customer-funded facilities are already common for generator interconnections and some distribution projects, but high-voltage networks also carry shared reliability duties and PJM regional-planning obligations approved by FERC.
Dominion Treats Rider T1 As The Wrong Forum
Dominion countered that the CIAC proposal should not be decided inside the Rider T1 case.
The utility's rebuttal pointed to PJM regional planning, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission jurisdiction, and retail rate design as issues that require a separate proceeding.
Commissioner Kelsey Bagot pressed Brooks on how voluntary CIAC would interact with the state's newly approved GS-5 tariff.
Brooks testified that he was not sure how the proposal would work alongside existing transmission charges but called voluntary CIAC a logical next step beyond protections already included in GS-5.
Regional Planning Still Limits Private Funding
Johannes Pfeifenberger of The Brattle Group told the Commission that CIAC works only as a partial answer when an upgrade has identifiable beneficiaries ready to fund it.
He cautioned that the lowest-cost transmission projects often do more than serve one new load, as they can also integrate generation, improve reliability, and support future expansion.
Neil Osnato of Persistence Analytics Group used 1 GW and 3 GW campus examples to show how a single data-centre line can reshape flows, contingencies, substations, local reliability work, and later network expansion.
His testimony warned PJM against moving privately backed upgrades ahead of older projects or investments that serve the system more efficiently.
The planning problem extends beyond payment mechanics.
Osnato separated speculative load requests from projects with contracts, collateral, site control, permits, financing, construction readiness, and confirmed power delivery; CIAC leaves regional cost causation, load verification, and stranded-asset risk unresolved.
Minimum Demand Charges Shift The Bill Impact
The state's newly approved transmission minimum demand charges are already moving more transmission responsibility to large-load customers.
Brooks testified from Dominion's revised Rider T1 schedules that roughly 90% of the increased transmission responsibility shifts to the GS-4 large-load class while costs for residential customers fall.
Dominion's June rebuttal filing reduced the projected monthly residential bill impact of Rider T1 from about $2.90 to $0.94 after incorporating newer load forecasts plus the minimum demand charges.
A final order date is not in the public record.
