About $100 billion is on the line for electric ratepayers across 13 states, Maryland officials warn, as massive data centers become a reality across the mid-Atlantic and Northeast.

PJM Interconnection is the regional power grid operator for Maryland and all or parts of 12 other states and Washington, D.C. It is forecasting a 32-gigawatt growth in peak load, which is the highest level of electricity consumption, by 2030. That triggers higher bills for ratepayers — as much $70 a month extra by 2028, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy nonprofit.

About 30 GW of that increase comes directly from the data center boom, according to a letter from PJM in August.

This week, Maryland State Sen. Katie Fry Hester, a Democrat representing Howard and Montgomery counties, launched the PJM State Legislators Collaborative. The bipartisan group, made up of 65 legislators from each state in PJM’s territory, held its first meeting late Wednesday.

“It’s really important for us to be clear that a lot of these increases that people are seeing on their bills is because of data centers currently online, and projected growth in data centers,” Del. Lorig Charkoudian, a Montgomery County Democrat, said in a media call after the meeting.

Officials are concerned that the grid operator’s projected surge is based on data center proposals that may never come to fruition.

The grid operator is weighing a plan to change the 2028-2029 capacity market auction rules and add expensive transmission expansions, such as the Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project.

The Maryland Office of People’s Counsel, an independent state agency representing ratepayers, raised concerns about the grid operator’s growth projections last week.

Over the last 100 years, Maryland’s total peak demand has only reached 12 GW. Adding the projected 32 GW would be “the equivalent of about five states the size of Maryland in just the next five years,” according to a statement from the agency.

PJM said it is creating a “Critical Issue Fast Path” process to find solutions for grid reliability and energy resource concerns as more data centers come online.

Hester said PJM is considering 14 proposals, but only a few explicitly protect ratepayers.

“If a proposal is silent on who’s paying, then it is our residential ratepayers,” Charkoudian said.

PJM should decide on its proposed plan by Nov. 19 and file it with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission by December.

The OPC warned that if PJM didn’t “act decisively,” the 67 million people connected to the grid would have to pay “billions in costs resulting from the capacity market and transmission expansion necessary to support projected data center growth.”

“It is bad enough that Maryland residential customers are already paying the price of policies that have them subsidizing some of the world’s wealthiest corporations,” Maryland People’s Counsel David Lapp said in a statement last week. “They shouldn’t have to pay for inflated estimates of projected growth that is unlikely to ever occur.”

But PJM argues that the Critical Issue Fast Path process has nothing to do with passing costs to ratepayers.

“That is in the hands of the states themselves through their retail rate-making regimes,” Daniel Lockwood, a spokesperson for PJM, said in an email Thursday. “Continued politicization of all things related to PJM will not solve the overall supply problem that states like Maryland are contending with. This is a distraction that is not based in fact or an understanding of the fundamentals of utility regulation.”

Maryland, which has 41 data centers and three more in the works, is actively seeking to lure more of them. Many officials tout the industry’s ability to fill holes in government budgets through taxes.

Residents are increasingly concerned, however, about the impacts these behemoths have on water supplies, land and the power grid.

Thirteen governors, including Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, created and launched the PJM Governors’ Collaborative last month.

In addition to the PJM State Legislators Collaborative, the Maryland Freedom Caucus, made up of Republican state legislators, also started its own multistate coalition this week.

Members of the caucus have blamed climate laws and Maryland’s push for zero-emissions electric vehicles for the soaring energy bills.

Del. Brian Chisholm, an Anne Arundel County Republican, called it “climate cultist ideology,” but said the GOP’s new coalition is “firmly united” on “delivering real, adult solutions.”