Can Data Centers Actually Lower Your Electric Bill?

**Christine Martin** (0:00)
What we have seen over the last couple of years within PJM is a mismatch with low demand and generation supply. The price of electricity, including the customers that we serve in Pennsylvania, are increasing.

**Kinsey Grant Baker** (0:14)
Data centers and huge cities, but there's also these 1.3 million residential customers of PPL.

**Christine Martin** (0:20)
When you have these very large customers, hyperscalers, data centers, they're paying a proportionately much larger part of that system. So the costs for everyone else ultimately go down.

**Kinsey Grant Baker** (0:31)
A lot of it just comes down to how you're telling this story to your customers.

**Christine Martin** (0:35)
We need to be a consistent, transparent voice for our communities. Having to create structure and guidelines where they didn't exist.

**Kinsey Grant Baker** (0:50)
Hey there and welcome back to Power Perspectives. I'm Kinsey Grant Baker.
So these days, so much of the conversation at Power Perspectives is about how can utilities centers on one big theme? Affordability. Bet you probably could have guessed that. How can utilities ensure that their customers aren't the ones left buckling under the pressure of an increasingly complex grid? How can they ensure equitable access to power, whether you're a hyperscaler powering a data center or kindergarten teacher powering your EV?
How are utilities making the right kind of impact? One way is through economic development. By joining forces with local communities to enrich economies regardless of utility bill trends. Could it be a win-win? That's what we're going to try and find out today. Today, we are exploring how utilities can leverage partnerships to support business growth and community investment across their service territories with Christine Martin, President of PPL Electric Utilities. Christine, welcome to Power Perspectives. How are you today? Thank you, Kinsey.

**Christine Martin** (1:44)
I'm doing great. Glad to be here.

**Kinsey Grant Baker** (1:46)
Glad to have you here. We've got a great conversation lined up. I'm excited to hear a little bit more about the work that you're doing and how it impacts communities. I think to start, that would be great to just hear a little bit more about PPL. Tell me a little bit about the customers you serve, maybe the area, the geography you cover, and maybe what your role too as president entails.

**Christine Martin** (2:03)
Sure. Glad to do that. PPL Electric Utilities is the delivery company for 1.5 million Pennsylvanians. We are a transmission and distribution company. We own and operate assets across 29 counties in Pennsylvania. It's primarily northeast, central, and heading into some of the southeast from part of the state. Our customers are about 1.3 million, our residential customers. The rest are made up of our small commercial, large commercial, and industrial customers. As president of the company, my job is really to keep our workforce on more than 1,400 hardworking Pennsylvanians focused on reliability, resiliency, safety, customer service, making sure that our customers have the electricity they need when they expect it. No one wants to think about electricity, right? It needs to be there 24-7, powering the lives of our customers. And that's something that we take very, very seriously.
So, our system, I like to say, is enough to circle the earth twice. So, it's a pretty large system, about 50,000 miles of transmission and distribution lines.
So, we go through a lot of different terrain, valleys, mountains, large land areas and forested areas across our 29 counties. It's a very diverse both city and rural service territory.

**Kinsey Grant Baker** (3:37)
It's interesting to hear some of the context of the work that you're doing, the work that you and your team are doing, and to circle the earth twice is pretty considerable. What I also think is interesting in there that you mentioned, 1.3 million of your 1.5 million customers are residential.
A lot of times it seems like this conversation around affordability is really centered on the concerns of those residential customers. I'd love to hear a little bit more about what is making affordability such a big conversation for those customers and for people in Pennsylvania and, candidly, across the country too. When we're looking at affordability as a big picture conversation for utilities, tell me a little bit about what might actually be driving utility bills higher, electricity bills higher in Pennsylvania, in your service territory, and importantly, how much of that you as PPL can control?

**Christine Martin** (4:28)
It's a great question, Kinsey, and it's really top of mind for all of our customers. And as you said, primarily our residential customers are very focused on it. It's, you know, electricity prices have become really a kitchen table issue for our customers. And it's something that, look, even before the price increases we've seen over the last couple of years, affordability has always been front and mind for PPL Electric Utilities. The way that we have operated, the way that we have invested in our system is always to get the most out of the investments we've made, to have a very incremental approach to build increases for our customers. I mean, for example, our company has just come through our first distribution base rate increase in 10 years.