Digital Power Network Responds to New York Governor Hochul’s 2026 State of the State: You Can’t Champion Grid Flexibility While Punishing the Grid’s Most Flexible Resource
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Washington, D.C. / Albany, NY — The Digital Power Network (DPN), the nation’s leading coalition of Bitcoin miners and digital infrastructure developers, today released a formal response to New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s 2026 State of the State, warning that the Governor’s energy and data center policies contain a fundamental contradiction that threatens affordability, reliability, and long-term grid stability.
While the Governor’s agenda rightly emphasizes the need for a more flexible electric grid to control costs and protect ratepayers, DPN argues that the same document advances punitive policies toward large flexible loads, precisely the resources that deliver grid flexibility at scale.
“Governor Hochul is right about one thing: the future of New York’s grid depends on flexibility,” said Hailey Miller, Executive Director of the Digital Power Network. “But New York cannot claim to champion grid flexibility while actively suppressing the most flexible resource it has.”
The State of the State highlights demand response, load aggregation, and smart energy management as tools to avoid overbuilding expensive infrastructure, reduce system costs, and strengthen reliability. DPN notes that these goals are already being achieved by large, dispatchable, price-responsive compute facilities, including Bitcoin mining operations, which can curtail instantly, absorb excess generation, and actively stabilize grid conditions in real time.
Yet in the same proposal, the Governor characterizes large energy users, including data centers, as a burden on the grid, suggesting they should be penalized, restricted, or required to self-supply power.
“This is not just a rhetorical inconsistency, it’s a policy failure,” Miller added. “You cannot praise demand response while punishing the most effective form of it. You cannot claim to protect ratepayers while pushing away infrastructure that lowers long-run system costs.”
DPN’s response also challenges the claim that large digital infrastructure facilities do not meaningfully contribute to local economies. The organization points to construction jobs, operations and maintenance roles, grid investments, tax base expansion, and renewable energy development that these facilities enable.
“If affordability is truly the goal, then suppressing the grid’s most powerful cost-reduction tools is indefensible,” Miller said. “Flexibility cannot be symbolic. It must be structural.”
DPN urged New York lawmakers and regulators to align the State’s energy and infrastructure policy with its stated goals, by recognizing flexible compute infrastructure as a grid asset rather than a liability.
Read DPN’s full response to the 2026 State of the State here.
About the Digital Power Network (DPN):
The Digital Power Network (DPN) is the largest coalition of Bitcoin miners and digital infrastructure leaders in the United States, representing over 85% of the Bitcoin hash rate among publicly traded U.S. mining companies. DPN advocates for policies that promote energy innovation, grid resilience, economic development, and the strategic role of digital assets in the 21st-century economy.