FirstEnergy Data Center Contracts Surge 50% in Q2, Igniting West Virginia Ratepayer Backlash
In its Q2 2026 earnings conference call on July 29, 2026, FirstEnergy (NYSE: FE) revealed an extraordinary acceleration in AI-driven power demand. The Akron, Ohio-based utility announced that its contracted data center load has surged 50% quarter-over-year to 6.4 GW by 2035 (up from 4.3 GW in Q1). Furthermore, FirstEnergy’s total data center pipeline (including potential future customers) expanded 30% in Q2 to 24.8 GW, representing approximately 70% of the utility's entire system peak load of 34.8 GW.
This unprecedented demand has triggered an aggressive capital expenditure cycle, leading to direct clashes over who will pay for the necessary generation and transmission infrastructure.
The West Virginia Maidsville Surcharge Dispute
In West Virginia, two FirstEnergy subsidiaries—Monongahela Power and Potomac Edison—have applied to the West Virginia Public Service Commission (PSC) for a certificate of public convenience and necessity to build the Maidsville Energy Center. The project includes:
- A 1,200 MW natural gas-fired power plant costing $2.5 billion (operating by 2031).
- Three solar installations totaling 70 MW costing $182 million.
Although the Maidsville project is being built specifically to serve a single planned 1,012 MW data center, Mon Power is seeking to levy a construction surcharge on all of its regular customers. The utility projects that this surcharge will increase average residential rates by 2.3%.
This proposal has ignited fierce local opposition. A coalition consisting of the West Virginia Citizen Action Group, Solar United Neighbors, and Energy Efficient West Virginia formally petitioned the PSC to reject the surcharge. The coalition argues that the data center project is highly speculative, noting that the developer’s ramp-up schedule has already been delayed by two years to 2035.
Transmission Upgrades and Cost-Allocation Battles
FirstEnergy estimates that every gigawatt of new data center load requires $250 million in transmission upgrades. Under current PJM Interconnection rules, these transmission costs are socialized and shared among all ratepayers in the territory.
To address this cost-shifting issue, FirstEnergy formally petitioned the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in June/July 2026, requesting that grid operators assign major transmission upgrade costs directly to the data centers that trigger them. FirstEnergy's CFO Jon Taylor also indicated that the utility is evaluating the creation of a separate, unregulated generation subsidiary to shield regulated ratepayers from merchant-like wholesale agreements.