Mark McNees

Six states have now passed binding laws on who pays for data center power. Four write the customer's long-term commitment into the statute. Florida and Texas leave it to regulators. ⠀ New Jersey, Oklahoma and Oregon require commitments of 10 years or more. California requires an early termination fee for data centers that leave within 10 years. Florida lists exit fees as an option regulators may approve. ⠀ markmcnees.com/press/data-ce… ⠀ #DataCenters #Ratepayers #EnergyPolicy #SB484 #LargeLoad #UtilityRates #WhoPays

Six states have passed binding laws on who pays for data center power. Four write the customer's long-term commitment into the statute. Florida and Texas leave it to regulators. ⠀ New Jersey, Oklahoma and Oregon require commitments of 10 years or more. California requires an early termination fee for data centers that leave within 10 years. Florida lists minimum terms and exit fees as options. ⠀ markmcnees.com/press/scoreca… ⠀ #DataCenters #EnergyPolicy #Ratepayers #UtilityRegulation #SB484 #LargeLoadTariffs #CostAllocation

Duke says it will refile its Florida large-load tariff. The PSC's 5-0 denial on Nov. 3 named two fixes: the tariff covered only firm load, a limit SB 484 does not contain, and Duke showed no proof its existing rates make each large customer bear its full cost. ⠀ The second one is the whole law. ⠀ markmcnees.com/press/ ⠀ #EnergyPolicy #DataCenters #Ratepayers #SB484 #Florida #UtilityRegulation

OpenAI says it will cut power use at U.S. campuses it directly develops during extreme weather and grid emergencies. @axios has the details. ⠀ That helps on a bad day. It does not answer the other question: if a campus leaves or renegotiates, who carries the cost of what was built for it? ⠀ axios.com/2026/11/02/openai-… ⠀ #DataCenters #Ratepayers #EnergyPolicy #UtilityRegulation #AIEnergy

Florida regulators take up Duke's large-load tariff tomorrow. Staff recommends denial: firm load only, and no showing its rates cover each large customer's full cost. ⠀ If this goes wrong, who pays? ⠀ markmcnees.com/press/rubric.… ⠀ #EnergyPolicy #DataCenters #Ratepayers #SB484 #Florida

North Carolina's proposed Duke data center deal protects other customers for five years. Power plants get paid off over decades. @WRAL reports AG Jeff Jackson says it is unclear who pays for the plants. ⠀ That is the question every large-load tariff has to answer in writing. Who carries the asset if the customer leaves in year six? ⠀ wral.com/news/local/governor… ⠀ #DataCenters #Ratepayers #EnergyPolicy #NorthCarolina #DukeEnergy #LargeLoad #UtilityRates

Meta tells @aldotcom its Huntsville data center raises no one's bill. The campus buys power direct from TVA under a contract no state commission reviews. ⠀ Florida's SB 484 puts large-load terms in a public tariff. The PSC takes up Duke's version Nov 3. A promise is not a tariff. ⠀ al.com/news/huntsville/2026/… ⠀ #DataCenters #EnergyPolicy #Ratepayers #UtilityRates #SB484 #TVA

This week the @POTUS said data centers should make their own electricity. Washington can say it. States decide who pays. ⠀ The grid a data center triggers is paid for through retail rates, and retail rates belong to state commissions. Florida settled it in May: SB 484 requires large-load tariffs that recover the full cost of serving them. ⠀ markmcnees.com/press/data-ce… ⠀ #EnergyPolicy #DataCenters #Ratepayers #SB484 #AIEnergy #UtilityRegulation

JEA says large loads will pay for their own infrastructure. Good. But that's JEA's promise, not SB 484's: the law reaches investor-owned utilities only. ⠀ 2,997,873 Florida accounts sit outside it. ⠀ news4jax.com/news/local/2026… ⠀ #DataCenters #SB484 #JEA #Ratepayers #Florida

In @orlandosentinel today: Florida's data center law requires the outcome, not the tools. ⠀ One filing shows ~$1B of new plant still on the books in 2047. If the customer leaves at year 20, who pays? ⠀ orlandosentinel.com/2026/10/… ⠀ #DataCenters #SB484 #Florida #Ratepayers #EnergyPolicy

TEPCO will cancel a data center's grid contract if it doesn't pay its share in 3 months, per @NikkeiAsia. From 2027, late starts can be charged too. ⠀ Who pays when the load comes late, or never? ⠀ asia.nikkei.com/business/ene…

Florida's data center law requires the outcome and only permits the tools. Read against the Oct. 1 filings, Tampa Electric misses no required test. FPL, Florida Public Utilities and Duke each miss one. ⠀ #SB484 #DataCenters #Ratepayers #EnergyPolicy #Florida #LargeLoad

Virginia's July 31 order split transmission in two. Direct connect facilities, the substation and the lines to the building, get a mandatory contribution in aid of construction. Higher-order transmission, the backbone everyone eventually uses, got deferred for a more deliberate approach. Yes for the wire. Not yet for the system. Florida's four investor-owned utilities file October 1. The question to ask of each filing is which of those two it reaches.

California's AB 2383 was enrolled September 4. Its text requires the generation tariff for data centers to carry a payment mechanism lasting at least ten years, and that mechanism must include early termination fees. Florida's SB 484 lists early termination fees among the tools the Commission may approve. Section 366.043(5)(g) authorizes them. It does not require them. Same instrument, two different verbs. Florida's four investor-owned utilities file October 1, and that filing is where you find out which verb Florida meant.

Palm Beach County already paused new large-scale data center applications. Tomorrow the ordinance that defines them gets its first reading. ⠀ Watch what that is. A county cannot set an electric rate. That sits with the Public Service Commission, or with a co-op board. ⠀ So when a county wants an answer on who pays for the capacity a facility triggers, it reaches for the one tool it controls. Zoning. Conditional use. The comprehensive plan. ⠀ Moratoriums are what cost allocation looks like when you do not hold the pricing tool. ⠀ A pause is a timeout, not an answer. It buys time to write conditions into the code. If the code never gets written, the pause expires and nothing changed. That is what tomorrow is. ⠀ And that tool works on the parcel, not the meter. Same either way, investor-owned or cooperative. For the Florida customers outside Commission jurisdiction, it is the only instrument on the table. ⠀ Investor-owned utilities file their large load tariffs October 1. That is the state answer, and it reaches part of the state. ⠀ The rest gets decided in county code.

He never raised capital. He never ran an ad. He never scaled past twelve people in his lifetime. Two thousand years later, the organization he founded is still growing. I spent twelve years studying how Jesus did it. Not as a theologian. As a founder who has built companies, nearly lost one, and now teaches entrepreneurship at Florida State. The Forever Founder breaks down the playbook across seven phases. Beginning. Startup. Growth. Crisis. Scale. Empire. Forever. It is free on Kindle right now. Grab it: amazon.com/dp/B0H3TVSZ5N

He had no money. No investors. No formal education. No second chance. Still, he built the most enduring organization in human history. Two thousand years ago, a carpenter named Jesus launched a startup with twelve unproven recruits and no resources. It outlasted the Roman Empire. It survived every market collapse, political upheaval, and technological revolution that has come for it since. By any measure a founder would use, it is the most successful venture ever created.The Forever Founder is not a religious book. It is a business book that asks a question almost no one has taken seriously: what did this founder actually do, and what can you learn from it? It is free on Kindle right now. Grab it: amazon.com/dp/B0H3TVSZ5N #kindle #leadership #free #download #startup #scale #book #ebook

Tallahassee's land development code contains zero references to data centers. Not one. I searched the full export: 707 nodes, 2.07 million characters. Nothing for colocation. Nothing for server farm. Nothing for megawatt. A code that does not define a thing cannot prohibit it. New in the Tallahassee Democrat: tallahassee.com/story/opinio…