The Kentucky Public Service Commission on Tuesday granted the state’s largest utility companies permission to spend $3 billion to build two new natural gas power plants.

Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities say the new plants are mostly needed to meet the future power demands of energy-guzzling “hyperscale” data centers they expect to be built in Kentucky in the near future. Such data centers have proliferated across the country in recent years — many now powering customers’ artificial intelligence services — with Kentucky lawmakers recently attempting to lure them with tax incentives.

LG&E/KU were also cleared by state regulators to extend the life of a coal-fired power plant in Carroll County that was set to be retired in the coming years, but denied a request to keep a c

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