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Policy

Every GridPermit post tagged “Policy.” Back to the full blog.

October 24, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

Kentucky Power Wants to Build a New Gas Plant for a Data Center That's Still Just a Filing. It's Already Promising $100 Million Back to Everyone Else's Heating Bill.

Kentucky Power hasn't broken ground on the 760-megawatt gas plant a TeraWulf data campus needs. It's already promising residential customers $25 a month in winter bill credits for a decade, if regulators approve the whole package.

Power & UtilityPolicyCommunity Opposition
October 23, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

Georgia Power's Record OpenAI Deal Got Real New Ratepayer Protections After Public Pressure. The Contract That Spells Them Out Is Entirely Blacked Out.

Georgia Power raised its promised bill relief to $180 a year after advocates objected to OpenAI's $20 billion data center deal. The contract explaining how is fully redacted, and a sitting U.S. senator just called for a moratorium.

Power & UtilityPolicyCommunity Opposition
October 22, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

Google Is Paying $716 Million for the Solar Farm Powering Its Own Data Center. The One Entergy Tried to Bill Everyone Else For Just Got Rejected.

Arkansas regulators rejected a second, $1.6 billion solar deal pitched partly on Google's data center needs. The first one is already funded -- Google is paying $716 million of it directly, a number that only surfaced through a records request.

Power & UtilityFinancing & InvestmentPolicy
October 21, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

A Minnesota Judge Halted Google's Data Center in May. The State's Attorney General Says the Real Cost Is Still Redacted.

Xcel says Google's Pine Island data center deal saves other customers $1.1 billion. Minnesota's attorney general says the number behind that claim is blacked out, and his own read of it comes out nearly a billion dollars negative.

Power & UtilityPolicyCommunity Opposition
October 20, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

A Federal Judge Dismissed DC Blox's Lawsuit Against Nashville. The City's Own Zoning Staff Say Its Data Center Permits Are Vested Anyway.

Nashville is trying to seize DC Blox's zoo-adjacent data center site by eminent domain even though the city's own zoning administrator says the project's permits are already vested under state law.

Zoning & EntitlementCommunity OppositionPolicy
October 19, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

San Francisco and Oakland Joined 300-Plus Cities Trying to Stop Data Centers This Week. By One Count, Only Three of Those Fights Have Actually Worked.

An analyst tracking 300-plus local data center restrictions found only three projects nationally actually delayed by them -- about 2.3 gigawatts out of roughly 20. A rival tracker puts the real toll many times higher.

PolicyCommunity OppositionCommercial Readiness
October 18, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

Meta Is Putting $200 Million Into Richland Parish's Schools and Roads. Entergy's Own CEO Just Revealed, by Accident, How Much Power the Data Center Behind It Actually Draws.

Meta is pledging $200 million for Richland Parish schools and roads. Mid-hearing, Entergy's own CEO let slip the real number behind it: four times New Orleans' peak power, continuously -- kept confidential until then.

Power & UtilityPolicyCommunity Opposition
October 17, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

Kelly Scott's Cattle Farm Sits 650 Yards From Wisconsin's Next Gas Plant. The Commission Approved It Anyway.

Wisconsin approved two billion-dollar gas plants for Microsoft and Oracle's data centers over 82-88% hearing opposition, with a signed Microsoft contract still carrying language regulators already ordered removed.

Power & UtilityPolicyCommunity Opposition
October 16, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

Texas Sent 156 Data Centers a Warning Letter About Their Water Use. The Law Behind It Can Only Fine Them $500.

Two companies skipped a legislative hearing rather than explain their water use. Texas just mailed 156 more letters asking the same question, backed by a law that tops out at a $500 fine.

Water RightsPolicyCommercial Readiness
October 15, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

Washington Has Let PJM Switch Data Centers to Backup Generators Four Times This Year. Nobody's Had to Flip the Switch Yet.

DOE authorized PJM to force data centers onto backup generators this week, the fourth time in 2026. The alert got recalled by Wednesday noon, and PJM still hasn't pulled the trigger once.

Power & UtilityGrid CapacityPolicy
October 15, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

Indiana's New Data-Center Cost Law Just Passed Its First Test. The State's Largest Utility Still Gets to Bill Everyone Else for $74 Million of It.

Indiana's first case under its new data-center cost law closed October 7th. Google clears the 80% floor by a wide margin — but $74 million of the build still lands in AES Indiana's general rate base.

Power & UtilityPolicyCommunity Opposition
October 14, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

PJM Wanted the Power to Decide Which Data Centers Get Cut Off First. FERC Just Said That's Not PJM's Call.

FERC approved a registry tracking every 50-megawatt-plus data center in 13 states, then rejected PJM's plan to curtail them ahead of ordinary demand response. The $29.4 billion question of who pays is still open.

Power & UtilityPolicyGrid Capacity
October 13, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

Kokomo's Mayor Turned Down a Tax Break to Land a Data Center. OpenAI and the Electricians' Union Are Betting the Deal Travels.

Kokomo offered a data center zero tax abatement and still landed a $1.3 billion campus. Six other states are watching whether that deal, not a ban, is what actually calms the backlash.

PolicyCommunity OppositionCommercial Readiness
October 11, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

Virginia Was Going to Charge Every Household $2.90 a Month for a Data Center Power Line. Regulators Cut It to 94 Cents by Billing the Data Centers Instead.

Dominion wanted Virginia ratepayers to help cover a new 765,000-volt transmission line built mostly to serve data centers. Regulators cut the typical household's share by two-thirds and told Dominion to go bill the data centers for the rest.

Power & UtilityPolicyCommercial Readiness
October 8, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

Duke Energy Couldn't Show Its Data-Center Math in September. In October, Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft Signed the Document That Does.

North Carolina denied Duke a $584 million gas plant for failing to show its data-center cost math. Weeks later, a new settlement — signed by the hyperscalers themselves — tries to answer it, though critics say the numbers are still too soft.

Power & UtilityPolicyCommercial Readiness
October 5, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

The World's Busiest Data Center Market Ended Its Own Shortcut. Tomorrow It Votes on Whether the Projects Already in Line Still Get to Use It.

Loudoun County ended by-right data center permitting in 2025, but let the projects already in line keep the old rules. On October 6th, supervisors vote on whether roughly 17 of them still get to use those rules. Data centers already bring in 38 to 42 percent of the county's local tax revenue.

Zoning & EntitlementPolicyCommercial Readiness
October 5, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

Michigan Made Google Guarantee 80 Percent of a Data Center's Power Bill for 20 Years. The Utility Granting That Contract Still Wants to Build Two New Gas Plants to Serve It.

Michigan regulators approved Google's 1-gigawatt data center contract on October 1st. It bills the company for at least 80% of its demand for 20 years. Meanwhile, DTE's own resource plan calls for two new gas plants sized almost exactly to the load it just signed up.

Power & UtilityCommercial ReadinessPolicy
October 3, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

North Carolina Regulators Denied Duke Energy a $584 Million Gas Plant. The 3-1 Vote Came Down to a Question About Data Centers Duke Couldn't Answer.

On September 18th, the North Carolina Utilities Commission voted 3-1 to deny Duke Energy a sixth gas turbine at its Smith Energy Complex, calling the $584 million price tag "staggering" and faulting Duke for not saying how much of the plant — or its cost — belongs to the data centers driving the request. The complex sits next door to Amazon's $10 billion AWS campus, under construction in the same county.

Power & UtilityPolicyCommercial Readiness
October 3, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

Amazon Just Promised $1 Billion to Data Center Towns. It Also Just Permitted the Country's Single Largest Carbon Polluter to Power One of Them.

AWS's October 2nd "Built Together" program ends non-disclosure agreements with local governments and pledges communities won't see higher electricity bills. The same week, critics pointed back at a Pecos County, Texas gas plant Amazon is financing — permitted to emit 33 million tons of CO2 a year, more than any other power plant in the country.

PolicyCommunity OppositionPower & Utility
September 30, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

New York Already Has a Statewide Data Center Moratorium. Buffalo Just Voted for a Longer One of Its Own.

Governor Hochul's one-year pause on data center permits is two and a half months old. On September 30th, Buffalo's Common Council voted for a two-year local moratorium on top of it — proof a state-level pause doesn't settle anything at the municipal level.

Zoning & EntitlementPolicyCommunity Opposition
September 29, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

California Signed Seven Data Center Laws in One Day. The Price Tag Isn't Written Yet.

Newsom's September 21st signing is being called the most comprehensive data center law package in the country. Most of what it actually changes is who gets to write the numbers later, and when.

PolicyPower & UtilityWater Rights
September 28, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

Texas Halted Data Center Permits. Its New Interconnection Deposit Is the Bigger Story.

Gov. Abbott's Sept. 21 order paused every state permit tied to a data center project. The number that will actually change how sites get built is the $50,000-per-megawatt deposit Texas regulators adopted three days earlier.

Power & UtilityPolicyCommercial Readiness
September 28, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

The House Voted 417-3 to Make Data Centers Pay Their Own Grid Costs. The Word Doing the Work Is “Consider.”

H.R. 9340 passed the House by the widest possible bipartisan margin on September 16th. Six days later a Senate Democrat blocked it outright, and the reason why is buried in a single verb the bill uses forty times.

PolicyPower & UtilityCommercial Readiness