In February 2026 AEP Ohio told the state regulator what happened when it asked data center developers to put money behind their requests. Projects representing about 13,000 megawatts paid for an engineering study. When the service plans and the financial obligations arrived in writing, projects representing 5,642 megawatts signed. That gap tells you more about this market than any forecast I’ve seen.
The numbers are easy to misread, so a little context. AEP Ohio had already signed 12,219 megawatts of data center contracts before the new rules took effect, so this is not a story about demand drying up. The larger figure AEP cited earlier, 30,000 megawatts, is disputed. The Ohio Manufacturers Association says it was never a planning forecast, and I’ll leave that argument to them. The comparison here is between AEP Ohio’s reported paid studies and signed contracts.
The rules in question are AEP Ohio’s data center tariff, approved by Ohio regulators in July 2025 and aimed at new data centers over 25 megawatts. The developer commits to minimum monthly payments for 8 to 12 years. It must provide a guarantee or collateral unless it meets financial tests, and leaving early can carry substantial costs. Holding your place in line now means putting money at risk.
Expressing interest is easier than signing a contract. A study costs real money, but you can still walk away from it. A contract with collateral behind it is a different kind of commitment, and the same megawatt means something different at each step. When someone tells me a site has power, my first question is which of those steps they mean.
I work on land and power for data center sites in Ohio, so this is where I look. For a data center buyer, the power path is a large part of what makes the land valuable, and the path is only as real as the commitments that stand behind it. A buyer or an investor can ask a simple question of any site: where does its power sit on that ladder, and who put up money to be there?
A power agreement does not replace local permission to build. A utility approval is one decision. Zoning is another, made by a township or a city one at a time, and it can stop a site before the utility question is ever reached. A site with every power box checked and no zoning path is a problem that no tariff solves, and it is one a lot of people forget to ask about until late.
Ohio is spreading this approach. FirstEnergy’s Ohio utilities filed their own proposed data center tariff in June 2026, and the case is still open at the state regulator. AEP Ohio’s tariff is also under appeal at the Ohio Supreme Court, brought by manufacturers who argue that it singles out one industry. The case is fully briefed and waiting on a new oral argument date. These commitments matter beyond the buyer and seller. They help determine what gets built, and who pays if the project never opens.