Show Notes
Ratepayer Protection Act passed the U.S. House 417-3, pushing federal pressure behind large-load cost-allocation rules. In Virginia, Appalachian Power says Google’s 300 MW Botetourt campus will need $264 million in grid upgrades without charging other customers.
In this episode: Top stories: 1. House passes ratepayer protection bill to limit data center cost shifts | Utility Dive — Utility Dive https://www.utilitydive.com/news/house-passes-ratepayer-protection-bill-data-centers/830658/ 2. New details emerge about Botetourt grid upgrades for Google data center - Cardinal News — Cardinal News https://cardinalnews.org/2026/09/16/new-details-emerge-about-botetourt-grid-upgrades-for-google-data-center/ 3. Digital Realty, Colovore, Hut 8, CoreSite, and DataBank File to Build New Data Centers Across Texas — IDCNOVA https://www.idcnova.com/news/Digital-Realty-Colovore-Hut-8-CoreSite-and-DataBank-File-to-Build-New-Data-Centers-Across-Texas 4. ETCC Challenges FERC Order 1920 ROFR Carve-Out in Fourth Circuit — EV Charging Magazine https://evchargingmag.com/etcc-fourth-circuit-oral-arguments-ferc-order-1920-rofr 5. Natural Gas Capacity Surges as Renewables Lose Ground in U.S. Interconnection Queues — EnergyPulse — OpenSentiment https://www.opensentiment.org/article/natural-gas-capacity-surges-renewables-lose-ground-us-interconnection-queues
Follow and rate The Data Center Daily on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Feedback? Email [email protected]
More from The Data Center Daily
Entergy Arkansas and Google amend their West Memphis power deal to resolve an accounting fight over ratepayer charges while adding a 440 MW solar PPA, 1.4 GWh of batteries and new transmission. Also: Musk's 10 GW compute claim for SpaceXAI, TCEQ pulling its permit portal offline, and $35 billion of Chinese orders for an Nvidia workstation GPU.
PJM filed a FERC study agreement to evaluate roughly 9.6 GW of new data center load and 10.2 GW of generation at SB Energy's Flagship site in Pike County, Ohio, outside its interconnection queue. Also: AEP, X-energy and Amazon eye 960 MW of Xe-100 reactors in Indiana, Texas's data center permit freeze draws scrutiny, and Memphis deadlocks on a moratorium.
NiSource signs a 20-year, 1,100 MW supply deal with Microsoft, funded by Microsoft, and NERC's computational-load standards clear their final ballot. Plus AEP's $4 billion fuel cell plant for Google in Wyoming and a 7.5 GW gas campus in a Utah water filing.
Oregon's governor has paused air and water permits for data centers until July 2027, and DOE issued a heat-driven emergency order for PJM. Plus FERC's split vote on Duke's large-load transmission rules and Microsoft's multi-gigawatt plan for its Maia inference chips.
Google lands two power paths. Indiana regulators approved AES Indiana's $1.3 billion solar, storage and wires plan for its 390 MW Monrovia campus, the first test of the state's 80% large-load cost law. Separately, Constellation will spend $4.3 billion uprating 11 PJM reactors by 890 MW.