Takeaways From House Energy & Commerce Committee Hearing on AI and the Grid

April 30, 2026

Congress held a hearing this week on AI and the grid. The framing was about data centers, large loads, and whether utilities can keep up with surging electricity demand without raising rates on everyday customers. 

The headline numbers are striking. Duke Energy alone is committing $100B over five years to add 14 gigawatts of new capacity. That’s not incremental growth. It is a structural shift in the capital investment profile of regulated utilities. And it creates a problem that doesn’t get enough attention in these policy conversations.

Every dollar of new infrastructure must be unitized, classified, put in rate base, and accounted for under FERC and state regulatory rules. The testimony from Duke’s Nelson Peeler made it clear that regulators and utilities are working hard to ensure large-load customers pay their full cost, that stranded asset risk is managed, and that existing customers are protected. That is the right policy framework. But executing on it requires financial and accounting precision at a scale most utility back offices have never faced.

The volume of capital work utilities are committing to over the next decade will dwarf what their finance, accounting, and tax teams have managed historically. Unitization backlogs, cost allocation disputes, rate case preparation, and regulatory compliance don’t get easier when capital programs double or triple in size. They get harder.

This is exactly the problem PowerPlan was built to solve. Our customers manage over $4T in regulated assets across utilities, pipeline companies, and other capital-intensive regulated businesses. We have spent decades building software specifically for the financial complexity that sits behind the grid. Fixed asset accounting, tax fixed assets, regulatory accounting, asset retirement obligations (ARO), lease accounting, and the full rate base lifecycle.

When the congressional hearing talks about affordability, a big driver is whether utilities can accurately track, allocate, and justify every dollar of investment to regulators and ratepayers. Misclassified assets don’t just create audit risk. They affect what utilities can recover in rates. Cost allocation errors on large-load interconnections invite exactly the regulatory scrutiny that policymakers are demanding. Rate-based mistakes have real consequences for both the utility and the customers they serve.

The policy debate happening in Washington is important. But the operational challenge facing utility finance teams right now is just as real, and far less visible. The infrastructure buildout Congress is debating has to be managed, accounted for, and defended before regulators. That work happens in systems like ours.

The utilities that get this right will be positioned to move fast, recover their investment, and keep rates manageable. The ones that don’t will be fighting backlogs, audit findings, and regulatory challenges while trying to execute the largest capital programs in the industry’s history.

We work with the largest regulated utilities in the country. We know what this workload looks like. PowerPlan is built for exactly this moment. Start the conversation with us today.