According to a filing American Electric Power (AEP) submitted to the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO), data center tariffs are working as designed and may be showing a potential to protect statewide residential, commercial and industrial customers, by limiting the data center costs those customers shoulder.

Data Center Tariff contracts under AEP, also called Schedule DCT contracts, require data centers requesting electric infrastructure from AEP to put up collateral payments. Any data centers requesting over 25,000 kilowatts of electricity from AEP are automatically required to sign a contract. AEP has filed with the PUCO that they are updating the energy load for data centers that have signed those binding contracts. 

Tariff contracts for data centers have become a growing way of managing consumer costs when it comes to the centers' energy consumption and offer a utility providers a way to sustainably expand energy commitments to data centers. AEP told 21 News that the contracts will protect the company's other customers "from shouldering the costs of an overbuilt system built on inaccurate estimates."

The tariffs were approved by the PUCO summer of 2025 and according to AEP's recent filing they are already making a difference.

"When required to make financial commitments under the Data Center Tariff, more speculative or uncertain data center projects did not sign contracts, effectively filtering them out — as the tariff was designed to do," the electric company stated.

Under the contracts, data center owners are also required to demonstrate financial viability and pay an "exit fee" is a project is canceled or does not meet its contractual obligations. AEP added that these requirements guard against the Ohio consumer having to pay any inflated costs associated with local data center projects. 

As of February 12, AEP says it has a total of 17,861 megawatts (MW) of electricity contracted under Schedule DCT by Ohio data center projects. According to AEP, "peak demand across all AEP Ohio customers has ranged between approximately 8,000 MW and 10,500 MW in recent years.

Before the tariff contracts were developed, data centers and developers across Ohio had requested 30,000 megawatts of energy from AEP — over three times the average customer consumption.

"Prior to AEP Ohio's Data Center Tariff, data centers would not have been required to commit to their projections and would have had limited financial repercussions if they did not use the amount of electricity they said they needed," AEP stated.

The company added that because of the magnitude of energy — and infrastructure required for it — AEP Ohio had temporarily paused new data center development until the Data Center Tariff was put in place. AEP stated that the change intends to safeguard Ohio residents and businesses.

"The safeguards the tariff puts in place are designed to ensure those requesting the infrastructure to support their power needs are the ones who will pay for it," AEP said.