Plain English Breakdown
The official metadata indicates a contradiction: one field states the bill passed both chambers and reached final enrollment, while another lists 'Last action' as held under submission. This discrepancy makes it impossible to confirm if the law is currently active based solely on this text.
AB-222: Data Center Energy Reporting, Efficiency Standards, and Cost Rules
This law requires developers of generative AI systems to report energy use for building and running their models, asks the State Energy Commission to track data center trends and collect efficiency ratios from owners, and directs the Public Utilities Commission to review electricity costs related to new or altered data centers.
What This Bill Does
- Requires developers to estimate total energy used to develop a covered generative AI model before using it commercially or making it available to third parties.
- Requires developers to report what percentage of that development energy was generated in California.
- Requires developers, starting February 1, 2027 and annually thereafter, to estimate the total energy used to operate their models during the previous year and the percentage generated in California.
- Mandates that developers publish this energy usage data on their internet websites.
- Directs the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission (Energy Commission) to include energy consumption trends for data centers in its biennial integrated energy policy reports.
- Requires the Energy Commission to establish a process for data center owners to submit their power usage effectiveness ratio twice each year.
- Orders the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to determine if costs and expenses from building new or substantially altering existing data centers are just and reasonable before allowing utilities to recover them.
- Instructs the PUC to minimize shifting electricity costs for these data center projects onto ratepayers who do not directly benefit from them.
- Requires the PUC to assess how much cost shifts occur due to new loads from data centers and submit this assessment to the Legislature by January 1, 2027.
Who It Names or Affects
- Developers of generative artificial intelligence systems or services made available in California
- Owners of data centers as defined by state law
- The State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission (Energy Commission)
- Electrical corporations and the Public Utilities Commission
Terms To Know
- Generative artificial intelligence system or service
- A computer program defined by existing law that creates new content based on patterns learned from training data.
- Power usage effectiveness ratio
- A measurement, as defined in the bill, of how efficiently a data center uses electricity for its computers compared to energy used by cooling and other support systems.
- Cost shifts
- When expenses from one group, such as a new data center construction, are passed on to pay bills for customers who do not directly benefit from that expense.
Limits and Unknowns
- The bill does not specify the exact dollar amounts or energy limits it sets.
- Specific submission formats and timeframes depend on future rules established by the Energy Commission.
- The official status metadata shows a conflict between 'Passed Legislature' and 'Held under submission,' leaving current legal effect unclear.