States around the country are addressing longstanding challenges with access to reliable, affordable energy as more people and businesses consume power than ever before.

Ohio has become a hub for data centers, for example, as major tech companies invest billions in building large-scale data centers in the central region of the state. These require significant amounts of electricity and put a strain on the energy grid. In order to ensure the lights stay on, Ohio lawmakers needed to build a policy framework to protect the state’s energy future.

With the help of The Buckeye Institute, Ohio passed the most significant energy policy the state has seen in over 20 years. It represents a model of free-market energy policy that promotes competition, transparency, and removes barriers to affordable energy. In particular, the new law will lower the cost and speed up the process of new energy generation.

Key provisions of the bill include: 

  • New power plants have an expedited permitting process
  • Reduced taxes for new energy generation
  • Ensures no special taxes or fees for specific energy users (like data centers)
  • Requires competitive bidding for electricity rates so that prices reflect market costs instead of being set by utilities.
  • Eliminates or reduces government subsidies and incentives (estimated to save about $100 million a year)
  • Transparency heat map on transmission—looking at how much existing infrastructure is currently being used
  • Energy companies will need to open their books through a traditional rate case to justify additional charges rather than just attaching riders without explanation to ratepayers.
  • Bans utility ownership of power plants, preventing monopolies and encouraging competition.

Rea Hederman, a member of SPN’s Energy Working Group and vice president of policy at Buckeye, published the following statement:

“With the signing of House Bill 15, Ohio is now a national leader in smart, free-market energy policy. While more work remains to ensure cost transparency and protect consumers from overpaying for costly infrastructure, The Buckeye Institute-championed policies are pro-consumer and pro-business—ending costly, uncompetitive subsidies, bringing back greater predictability in public utility rate cases, and incentivizing new energy development.”

Earlier this year, SPN provided a targeted investment towards their groundbreaking study, Better Energy Policy for Ohio, which included several of the key recommendations in the final bill.

Through the Energy Working Group, Buckeye is able to share their solutions and what they learned to help spread good energy reforms across the country.  Hederman added:

“Many of The Buckeye Institute’s commonsense policy recommendations were included in the legislation, which will boost Ohio’s energy generation and require utilities to be more transparent with their customers. And by repealing hundreds of millions in taxpayer-funded subsidies, as The Buckeye Institute has consistently called for, Ohio has helped ratepayers and businesses across the Buckeye State. 

The Buckeye Institute achieved this monumental victory by publishing rigorous research coupled with opinion pieces in preeminent media outlets, testifying before the Ohio General Assembly, meeting with state legislators, and talking to business leaders and other stakeholders about the urgent need for energy reform and the importance of affordable, reliable energy to Ohio’s economic success. The Buckeye Institute is grateful to the SPN energy group for all of its support in getting Ohio’s best-in-the-nation policy adopted.”