Central Ohio native Ryan Augsburger serves as president for the tOhio Manufacturers’ Association.
As an Akron jury deliberates FirstEnergy’s role in Ohio’s largest bribery scheme, we mustn’t forget AEP’s role in the scandal.
In January 2025, AEP agreed to pay a $19 million settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission to resolve claims that it made misleading statements and failed to properly disclose payments tied to a dark-money group connected to the House Bill 6 bribes.
Today, AEP turns to the same playbook, touting a power crisis due to data centers locating to Ohio.
So now Ohioans are facing the prospect of spending billions for unneeded electrical infrastructure. This time, the AI-fueled data center boom is the bogeyman, and utilities are relying on widely questioned demand forecasts to build new, expensive power facilities, sending customers the bill.
Electric bills already are rising and will increase again in April, based on a recent ruling by state utility regulators. By June, they will rise even more.
Ohio’s complex system of how power prices are determined makes it difficult for most customers to fight back.
Utilities have an incentive to exaggerate
But here are the basics: Utilities file demand estimates of customer load, including “large load adjustments” for data centers, at the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, which traditionally does not question the estimates. Regional grid operator PJM Interconnection tends to accept those estimates with limited scrutiny.
If utilities’ demand forecasts are high, electric bills climb higher.
Needless to say, utilities have an incentive to exaggerate because they make profit on how much they spend to build, not on how much electricity eventually moves through the wires. Take AEP at its word for what it told its shareholders while bragging of record profits, “… it doesn’t really matter to us financially whether that load is actually coming online or not.”
We shouldn’t pay for a ‘future that might never arrive’
Before customers are forced to fund billions in new power projects, the Ohio Manufacturers’ Association wants guarantees that the assumptions behind those decisions are tested, transparent and accountable. Overestimating demand forces Ohio customers to pay for a future that might never arrive.
To demonstrate that accurate forecasting is needed, OMA issued a report that shows how utility estimates of future power demand could be significantly wrong.
The report includes examples showing that utilities are likely counting data center projects multiple times, an insight widely supported by industry analysts.
Utility load forecasts also need to account for behind-the-meter generation that is booming in development, the exponential improvement in compute energy-efficiency, and the risks of lower-than-expected adoption of AI, among other factors. Time is of the essence.
Grid operator PJM recently approved $11.8 billion in new transmission projects based partly on these questionable projections.
Ohioans are not protected
Finally, where electrical infrastructure is needed, the costs need to be accurately allocated to the data centers. President Donald Trump’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge, signed by leading AI data center companies, is a good start.
But the state and the PUCO need to act on this good-faith pledge.
Unfortunately, Ohioans are not currently protected.
AEP’s new data center tariff did more to ensure AEP shareholder profit from data center risks, than it did to ensure ratepayers are protected. Despite having the burden of proof, AEP presented no rate impact analysis for review at the PUCO. OMA analysts argued the tariff is being used to increase load forecasts, while failing to protect other classes of customers.
Utility mistakes and greed can stack up and Ohio has a history of non-existent regulatory protection: it was a former PUCO chairman who authorized FirstEnergy’s ill-fated, $456 Million “Distribution Modernization Rider,” telling now indicted utility executives that “knowing that it would likely be found illegal and would not be refunded, I knew you would hold onto the funds.”
This half-billion-dollar giveaway was free cash for the utility. This year, the PUCO finally acted and $275 million in restitution is headed to ratepayers.
Ohio’s manufacturers and the OMA will keep pressing for transparency, accountability and rate structures that protect customers instead of underwriting flawed utility planning.
We will also continue to fight to end the flawed, discriminatory, utility-favored data center tariff that was approved by the PUCO and will keep defending the integrity of Ohio manufacturers.
We hope members of the Ohio Senate Energy Committee on Tuesday press for real answers on how inflated utility forecasts and other utility missteps were allowed to saddle customers with higher power bills.
Central Ohio native Ryan Augsburger serves as president for the Ohio Manufacturers’ Association and its more than 1,300 member companies across Ohio.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: AEP’s crisis is a power play that will gouge Ohioans| Opinion
Reporting by Ryan Augsburger, Guest columnist / The Columbus Dispatch
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