Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (1978)
Congress passed PURPA, requiring utilities to buy power from independent producers. The law created the first major market for cogeneration and small power plants.
Independent power producers emerged, and natural gas cogeneration boomed in the 1980s.
It broke the utility monopoly on generation and created the independent power industry that now builds data center plants.
PURPA showed that opening the power market to non-utility generators can transform the industry. Today, grid constraints rather than regulation are driving the same shift.
