American Electric Power of Ohio announced an effort to lower electric bills for Ohioans in partnership with some of the largest data center companies, but very few customers will actually benefit from this plan.
American Electric Power of Ohio announced this week in a press release that five data center giants, including Meta, Amazon and Google, will share profits, allowing the company to lower electric costs for customers. In its announcement, the company didn't share how many people this will end up helping.
In a statement to WOSU, the company said the Neighbor to Neighbor program will end up helping about 2,600 people per $1 million with up to $500 in assistance. With an $8.4 million budget next year, that would mean about 21,000 Ohioans could receive this aid.
Previously, the program only helped just over 1,000 people because it had a budget of $400,000.
Rising electric bills are one of the biggest affordability issues facing Americans, especially in states like Ohio that are the prime location for hyperscale data centers. The U.S. Energy Information Administration found that since May of last year, Ohioans' electric bills rose 22%.
Data centers are getting much of the blame for this, as the energy-guzzling facilities force AEP to upgrade transmission infrastructure. A lot of the increases seen year-over-year on customers' electricity bills are coming from the need to upgrade the electric grid.
"We hear our customers' concerns about rising energy costs — and we share them. Our employees live and work in these same communities and feel the same pressures. So we focus on what we can do: helping customers manage their bills and connecting them with every assistance program available," the company said in a statement.
In addition to raising the number of people eligible, customers who apply and qualify for this program will be subject to expanded income eligibility thresholds and more cash assistance. The program is also being changed to a year-round effort, rather than just during summer and winter.
Eligible customers can now receive up to $500 in assistance, limited to one grant per account. The amount was previously $350.
AEP's income eligibility threshold also increased from 200% to 300% of the federal poverty guidelines. This means that for a family of four, the income ceiling goes from $64,000 to about $96,000.
Columbus Stand Up is one of the local organizations rallying for AEP to lower electricity costs and for the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio to reign the company in.
The group's cofounder and former U.S. Senate candidate Morgan Harper called this a PR stunt and wants state regulators to step in more to reign in the utility company.
"We're not talking about a small slice of the central Ohio population that's impacted by increased utility costs we're talking about almost everyone," Harper said.
"If AEP wants to get serious about lowering electricity prices, they should not think of that as just folks on the lower income end of the spectrum. There are now people earning all sorts of amounts of money that are struggling to keep up with these increased costs," Harper continued.
Harper said it is great that this program for lower-income residents is getting a boost, but it still has problems that she thinks should be addressed.
Harper said AEP is unpopular and so are data centers, but people are starting to connect the dots about why their costs are going up.
Moving forward, Harper said the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio needs to hold AEP accountable. She said Ohio's next governor should appoint members to this commission who want to exercise the commission's regulatory authority on this.
"We wanna make sure the most vulnerable in our community are being supported, but that shouldn't be an issue that is managed by AEP cutting deals with big tech and AI companies," Harper said.
