Data centers: energy usage reporting and efficiency standards: electricity rates.

Assembly Member Bauer-Kahan's data center energy legislation establishes new reporting requirements and efficiency standards for artificial intelligence development and data center operations in California. The bill requires AI model developers to calculate and publicly disclose the total energy consumed during model development, including the percentage generated within California, before commercial deployment or third-party use.

The Energy Commission must incorporate data center energy consumption trends into its integrated energy policy reports and adopt efficiency standards for these facilities by January 2027. These standards will require new and substantially modified data centers to implement load management capabilities and align with state greenhouse gas reduction targets. Data centers must also report operational details to the Commission, including facility locations and contact information.

The Public Utilities Commission gains expanded oversight of data center-related costs under the legislation. When electrical utilities seek to recover expenses from constructing or significantly altering data centers, the Commission must evaluate whether these costs are reasonable and ensure they are not disproportionately shifted to ratepayers who do not directly benefit from the facilities.

The bill defines key terms including "covered model" as AI systems developed using over 10^25 computing operations, and "data center" as facilities housing computer rooms with energy demands of at least 5 megawatts. These provisions aim to increase transparency around energy usage while establishing standards for efficient operation of data centers and AI development infrastructure.