Feds will require data centers to show their power bills

In Brief

The Energy Information Agency told two U.S. Senators that it plans to require data centers to disclose details about their energy use, according to Wired.

The development comes a month after Sens. Josh Hawley and Elizabeth Warren sent a letter asking the EIA to gather data on data centers. The request was an effort to push the agency to cover an industry that is consuming ever-increasing amounts of energy.

The nationwide survey will be mandatory, Wired reports. The agency has not yet set a date for when it will implement the new questionnaire.

The EIA announced in March that it would conduct a pilot survey of 196 companies in Texas, Washington state, and the Washington D.C.-Northern Virginia metro area, and in April it said it would launch a second survey in three different states. EIA chief Tristan Abbey expects the two pilot surveys to be complete in September, at which point it will begin developing the mandatory survey that will cover data centers nationwide.