High-voltage transmission lines provide electricity to data centers in Ashburn in Loudon County, Virginia, on July 16, 2023. The centers house the computer servers and hardware required to support modern internet use, including artificial intelligence. The Associated Press

A House committee plans to consider separate bills next week establishing state regulation of data centers and geothermal energy resources.

The Energy Committee is scheduled to vote Monday on House Bill 1834 sponsored by Rep. Robert Matzie, D-Beaver, directing the state Public Utility Commission (PUC) to set regulations for data centers in such areas as paying grid-related costs and curtailing electric demand during emergencies.

The legislation would have The PUC issue rules preventing a utility from recovering costs from ratepayers that are directly tied to providing electric power to a data center or wouldn’t have been incurred but for its power demands.

The agency would issue rules regarding security deposits and minimum contract terms between utilities and data centers.

Data centers would be required to contribute to a special low-income heating assistance or LIHEAP fund. This revenue would supplement the existing state LIHEAP program.

HB1834 would apply to data centers with a peak demand over 25 megawatts.

The committee held a hearing on HB1834 last October.

The committee action comes with a flood of new projects to build data centers and public protests at public meetings where local governments are weighing whether to give siting approval.

During an Energy Committee hearing this week on energy affordability,

PUC Chair Stephen DeFrank said lawmakers should make data centers offset or pay money to cost-cutting programs for residential customers.

State Consumer Advocate Darry Lawrence urged lawmakers to ensure that data centers pay for any grid-related costs needed by their project.

Geothermal energy

The committee scheduled a hearing Tuesday on House Bill 2076 sponsored by Rep. Arvind Venkat, D-Allegheny, Energy Majority Chair Elizabeth Fiedler, D-Philadelphia, and Rep. Craig Williams, R-Delaware, establishing state regulation of geothermal energy.

“Geothermal energy is a potentially limitless, always-on power source that could provide clean, locally sourced heat and electricity to millions of Pennsylvania residents and businesses,” they said.

HB2076 gives the state Department of Environmental Protection authority to regulate and permit geothermal injection wells, allows repurposing abandoned oil and gas wells as geothermal wells, establishes subsurface ownership rights for geothermal resources and creates a new legal definition of geothermal resources.

The Joint State Government Commission released a study recently identifying nearly 400 potential sites near flooded coal mines in Pennsylvania that could be tapped for geothermal energy.

Geothermal energy is an underground source of power usually associated with hot springs and geysers in the western states. It’s used in electric power plants, heating and heat pumps.

Technological advances in reaching underground heat sources opens prospects for geothermal energy in Pennsylvania.