Op-Ed: H.B. 173 Is Ohio’s Golden Ticket for Nuclear Innovation and Data Center Growth

By Miranda Morrow, eGeneration Energy Correspondent

Ohio stands at the threshold of an energy revolution, and House Bill 173 is a crucial first step toward harnessing the full potential of our state's energy independence and economic innovation.

At its core, H.B. 173 enables private businesses, property owners, and industrial innovators to offer “behind-the-meter” (BTM) utility services without being classified or regulated as traditional public utilities. This legal clarification is vital for attracting cutting-edge, energy-intensive industries—like data centers, aluminum smelters, steel mills, and advanced nuclear research and development—by allowing them to directly enter into power purchase agreements (PPAs) with nearby generators, often just a few miles away, without being shackled by outdated PUCO, FERC, and PJM regulations.

Why does this matter? Because the economics of co-location—placing an industrial user near a generator—are game-changing. Imagine a small modular reactor providing grid electricity during peak hours and shifting at night to power a plasma gasification plant that turns municipal waste into clean energy. With H.B. 173, these types of energy symbioses move from fantasy to feasibility.

Jon Morrow, economist for the eGeneration Foundation, argues that this type of legislation is long overdue: “Ohio needs to empower ONDA(Ohio Nuclear Development Authority) projects to at least use behind-the-meter agreements for 100% of their operations, and up to 50% of a project’s operations when energy is sold under private PPAs that never enter the grid.” Morrow adds, “The reality is that these types of setups are necessary to drive innovation, reduce waste, and create economically viable advanced nuclear projects.”

Donald Larson, director of eGeneration, was more direct: “Opponents of BTM agreements aren’t worried about grid planning—they’re worried about protecting their turf. PJM and other grid planners have created a system where complexity equals control. What H.B. 173 does is cut through the fog of centralized authority and gives Ohio businesses more freedom to compete.”

Indeed, the opposition to BTM from entrenched utilities and planning bureaucracies reveals just how threatened they are by decentralization and technological competition. It is ironic that a supposedly “deregulated” energy market like Ohio still prohibits free agreements between two willing private parties located just a few miles apart.

But H.B. 173 is no panacea. It is a step in the right direction, but not yet the full leap Ohio needs. For example, it still imposes limitations on the amount of electricity that can be resold without triggering regulation. It still skirts around full exemptions for ONDA and future ONDC (Ohio Nuclear Development Consortium)-related projects that serve research and development efforts and fewer than 50 industrial customers.

As Miranda Morrow (yes, that’s me) sees it, “All ONDA and ONDC projects should be allowed to sign behind-the-meter agreements and be fully exempt from OPSB and PUCO oversight when their operations do not serve the public grid and remain below 50 customers. This is the very definition of marketplace competition. These projects are research engines, not public utilities, and they deserve the freedom to prove new technologies on their own terms.”

H.B. 173 plants the seeds of a hybrid model—a way to test whether voluntary, co-located energy generation can outperform top-down monopoly utility planning (bureaucratic and political central planning). If successful, it could result in lower costs, higher reliability, and greater technological flexibility. If unsuccessful, we’ll learn that too.

However, we’ll never know unless we allow the experiment to take place. Let’s give innovation a fighting chance. Ohioans deserve it. Pass H.B. 173 into law.

Energy Correspondent Miranda Morrow