Developer’s Guide to Powering the Data Center

Grid access, not land or capital, now sets the timeline for most large data centers. A gigawatt campus can take three to seven years to reach full load, and most of that time goes to studies, upgrades and waiting for generation.

The queue shows the scale of the problem. ERCOT is tracking about 474 GW of large-load requests, roughly 90% of them data centers and more than five times its peak demand. PJM accepted only about 34 GW of the roughly 60 GW its utilities submitted for 2030.

Reliability is now a gating issue too. On July 22, 2026, a normally cleared fault in northern Virginia caused about 3.8 GW of data center load to trip offline, the largest such event in PJM’s history.

I’ve written a guide for developers on how interconnection actually works in 2026:

🔹 Seven supply models, from utility service and PPAs to behind-the-meter generation, uprates and restarts of retired plants
🔹 Flexibility as a speed lever: accepting curtailment for about 85 hours a year could open 76 GW of grid headroom
🔹 How PJM, Dominion, ERCOT, SPP, MISO, the Southeast and CAISO differ, including who can be curtailed and who decides
🔹 The studies NERC and grid operators now expect, including multiple-fault ride-through
🔹 Contract terms that drive cost: minimum bills, security deposits, exit fees, basis and wheeling
🔹 The rise in cost from 2025 to 2026: Lazard’s average cost rose 18% for utility solar, 15% for combined-cycle gas and 11% for wind. A typical new combined-cycle plant went from about $1,400/kW to $2,200/kW, and turbines are heading to $600/kW with five-to-six-year lead times

The guide is built on recent interconnections across regions that regulators approved, rejected or modified, with the reasoning behind each decision:

✅ Approved: NIPSCO’s ring-fenced generation affiliate serving Amazon, Alphabet and Microsoft in Indiana; PECO’s transmission security agreement with Amazon; SPP’s interruptible large-load service; Dominion’s GS-5 take-or-pay rate class; and Texas’s first co-location case, approved with an uncompensated 30-minute disconnection requirement
❌ Rejected: Talen–Amazon’s co-location agreement at Susquehanna, PJM’s curtail-first plan for new large loads, and Tri-State’s high-impact load tariff. The last two failed because a federal tariff tried to set terms for retail customers, which states regulate
🔄 Modified or pending: Talen and AWS restructured into an $18B retail deal; Crane (Three Mile Island) is speeding its grid connection with interconnection rights from a retiring plant; PJM refiled its 6.8 GW backstop capacity procurement; and Entergy’s seven-plant expansion for Meta awaits a December vote in Louisiana

Regulatory facts are sourced to the FERC, PUCT, ERCOT and NERC filings themselves, using our IWE Large Load Regulatory Tracker.

📄 Read the guide: [LINK TO ARTICLE]

If you’re siting, financing or contracting power for a large load, I’d value your comments. Which markets or precedents should the next edition cover?

#DataCenters #Interconnection #FERC #ERCOT #PJM #GridReliability #EnergyPolicy