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Power & Utility

Every GridPermit post tagged “Power & Utility.” 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

Google Just Turned a 100-Megawatt Bet Into a Full Gigawatt of Grid Capacity. It Didn't Build a Single Power Plant to Do It.

Google just scaled a bet on grid flexibility tenfold to a full gigawatt in PJM, paying homes and businesses to use less power at the right moment instead of building a new plant.

Power & UtilityGrid CapacityFinancing & Investment
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 22, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

Blackstone Just Raised $8.7 Billion for Data Center Power Infrastructure. The Bottleneck It's Betting Against Isn't Land Anymore -- It's a Four-Year Line at the Grid.

Blackstone's fifth energy-transition fund closed oversubscribed at its hard cap on October 19th, 55% bigger than its last one. The bet: the real holdup for data centers now is a years-long wait for a grid connection, not a permit.

Financing & InvestmentPower & UtilityGrid Capacity
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

NiSource Promises Microsoft's Data Center Won't Raise Anyone's Bill. LaPorte County Already Decided Not to Take That on Faith.

NiSource says its new 20-year Microsoft power deal will save Indiana ratepayers $140 a year. LaPorte County didn't wait to find out -- it passed its own rules first.

Power & UtilityFinancing & InvestmentCommunity Opposition
October 19, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

Digital Realty Is Offering Every Household in a Kansas Town $1,000 a Year. Four Hundred Residents Signed a Petition Anyway.

Digital Realty's second De Soto, Kansas campus comes with a $20 million household fund, a 600-megawatt power deal the company is paying for itself, and a petition asking for a vote on the whole thing.

Community OppositionPower & UtilityFinancing & Investment
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

A Pennsylvania Township Just Got $120 Million From Two Data Centers to Build a Police and Fire Headquarters. Residents Wanted to Read the Deal First. Commissioners Voted Anyway.

Swatara Township, PA locked in $120.3 million from two Corscale data centers for a new police and fire headquarters -- residents asked for a week to review the agreement first, and commissioners voted it through anyway.

Zoning & EntitlementCommunity OppositionPower & Utility
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 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

A $2.8 Billion Data Center Beat Its Lawsuit in Spartanburg County. The Power Plant Behind It Never Went Before the Board That Reviews Power Plants.

South Carolina ruled Valara's 11-turbine gas plant isn't a "utility facility," so the one board that vets big power plants never saw it. A judge just threw out neighbors' last lawsuit over the project.

Power & UtilityZoning & EntitlementCommunity Opposition
October 12, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

A Geothermal Plant in Rural Utah Just Made History. Google's Near-Gigawatt Bet on It Is for a Data Center That Doesn't Exist Yet.

Fervo's first commercial enhanced-geothermal unit started selling power on September 30th — a world first. Google's much bigger bet on the same technology is for a data center that still has no confirmed site.

Power & UtilityFinancing & InvestmentCommercial Readiness
October 12, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

Oracle Will Absorb $300 Million in Nuclear Costs to Spare Wisconsin Ratepayers. The Transmission Line Carrying That Power Just Got $1 Billion More Expensive.

Oracle agreed to absorb roughly $300 million in nuclear fuel costs for its Wisconsin AI campus. The transmission line built to reach it just jumped past $2.7 billion, and who covers the rest is still unresolved.

Power & UtilityGrid CapacityFinancing & Investment
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 11, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

A $6 Billion Data Center Chose One of America's Poorest Counties. The County Has No Zoning Code to Weigh In.

Eagle Rock Partners says it won't ask Jefferson Davis County, Mississippi for a single tax break on its $6 billion campus. The county couldn't grant one if it wanted to — it has no zoning ordinance at all.

Zoning & EntitlementPower & UtilityWater Rights
October 9, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

A Pennsylvania Coal Plant Closed in 2019. The Data Center Taking Its Place Comes With a Gas Plant Projected to Pollute More Than Any Other One in the State's Pipeline.

Shippingport, population 160, just landed a $10 billion AI campus and 3,000 construction jobs. The dedicated gas plant built to power it is projected to out-emit every other one in Pennsylvania's data-center pipeline, including a bigger plant.

Power & UtilityFinancing & InvestmentCommunity Opposition
October 9, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

A Meta Contractor Contaminated Cheyenne's Recycled Water This Summer. The City's Utility Just Signed Google Up for 22 More Years of Data Centers.

Cheyenne's water utility sat on a bacterial contamination traced to a Meta data center contractor for weeks before residents found out. In October, the same city's utility locked in Google's next campus through 2048, on Google's dime.

Power & UtilityFinancing & InvestmentWater Rights
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 8, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

A Nuclear Reactor Died at This Tennessee Site in 1983. On September 29th, a Different One Became the First of Its Kind the NRC Has Ever Approved.

The NRC's permit for TVA's Clinch River reactor came four months ahead of schedule — rare for nuclear construction. Data centers already make up a fifth of TVA's industrial power demand, and TVA expects that to double by 2030.

Power & UtilityGrid CapacityFinancing & Investment
October 7, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

A Nuclear Plant Running Since 1986 Is About to Get 348 Megawatts Bigger. Google Is Paying the $4.3 Billion Bill, Not Ratepayers.

Google is financing $4.3 billion in nuclear plant upgrades, including the largest at Limerick, to add 890 megawatts of capacity in PJM, without asking Pennsylvania or New Jersey ratepayers to cover a dollar of it.

Power & UtilityGrid CapacityFinancing & Investment
October 6, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

A Louisiana Teacher's Bonus Check Jumped From $10,200 to $50,935 This Year. The Reason Is Sitting on Farmland Outside Holly Ridge.

Richland Parish's teacher bonus pool quintupled on sales tax from Meta's $50 billion Hyperion campus. The $12.9 billion plan to keep its power flowing gets a three-day Louisiana hearing starting October 7th.

Power & UtilityFinancing & InvestmentCommercial Readiness
October 6, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

Iowa's Only Nuclear Plant Closed in 2020. On September 8th, the Federal Government Put $1.9 Billion Behind Bringing It Back.

Iowa's Duane Arnold nuclear plant shut in 2020. Now a county has rezoned the site for nuclear, Google has signed a 25-year power contract, and the DOE has closed a loan of up to $1.9 billion to bring it back. Here's what the approvals actually show, and what's still open.

Power & UtilityZoning & EntitlementFinancing & Investment
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 5, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

What to Have Ready Before You Ask a Utility for a Large-Load Study

Utilities won't study a large load on a hunch. Before you submit, you need site control, a credible load ramp, a site plan, and a clear picture of who will pay for what. Here is the checklist we use to see whether a project is ready to be studied.

GuidePower & UtilityZoning & Entitlement
October 5, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

How a Large-Load Tariff Works, and What the Minimum Bill Really Means

A large-load tariff sets the terms for a data center's power, and the minimum bill decides who pays if the load never fully shows up. Here is how the rules differ by utility and what to check before you sign anything.

GuidePower & UtilityCommercial Readiness
October 4, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

Memphis Spent xAI's Tax Money on Home Repairs. On October 6th, It Votes on Whether to Pause the Next One.

Memphis's zoning code has no category for a hyperscale data center, so xAI's Colossus got built as ordinary industrial use. On October 6th, the City Council takes a final vote on a 12-month moratorium meant to fix that gap — at the same meeting it spends $3.2 million in tax revenue xAI already generated.

Zoning & EntitlementCommunity OppositionPower & Utility
October 4, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

FERC Just Froze PJM's $20 Billion Fix for Its Power Shortfall. Amazon's Own Fix Closed the Next Morning.

PJM's emergency backstop auction for a 6,831-megawatt capacity gap was supposed to open September 30th. FERC accepted it, then suspended it for five months over who pays. The next morning, Amazon signed its own 20-year, 690-megawatt nuclear deal in the same state — a deal the frozen auction had nothing to do with.

Power & UtilityGrid CapacityFinancing & Investment
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
October 2, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

New Mexico Rejected the Pipeline for Oracle's AI Data Center Twice. Oracle's Answer Was a Force Majeure Notice, Not a Backup Plan.

Project Jupiter was designed to skip the interconnection queue entirely by running on-site gas fuel cells instead of grid power. The gas still needs a pipeline New Mexico's land office has refused twice, a hearing officer just recused himself over bias claims, and on September 24th Oracle hedged its own lease rather than naming a new power plan.

Power & UtilityWater RightsZoning & Entitlement
October 2, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

Valar Atomics Wants to Build 456 Nuclear Reactors in a Utah Coal Town. The NRC Hasn't Licensed One Yet.

Project Beehive would lease more than 9,000 acres of Carbon County, Utah to a startup proposing 456 helium-cooled microreactors generating 9.6 gigawatts — nearly matching the state's entire peak grid capacity. Valar Atomics has raised more than $1.5 billion since 2023. Its reactor design has not cleared the one agency that can actually let it operate.

Power & UtilityZoning & EntitlementCommunity Opposition
October 1, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

Imperial Valley's $10 Billion Data Center Said It Wouldn't Touch the Colorado River. It's Suing Over 260 Million Gallons of It.

In December, the developer pledged to run its 330-megawatt AI complex on recycled wastewater. By June it was suing the Imperial Irrigation District for Colorado River water instead — and September brought the project a CEQA reversal and a power-curtailment policy that puts it last in line during a shortage.

Water RightsZoning & EntitlementPower & Utility
October 1, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

The Energy Department Put $250 Million Into a Transmission Line Through Lamar, Colorado. It's One of 31 Bets on Finding Gigawatts in Wires We Already Own.

DOE's September 24th SPARK awards put $1.9 billion behind 31 projects to reconductor and upgrade existing transmission lines instead of waiting years for new ones. In eastern Colorado, that means tripling the Lamar Tie's capacity to 700 megawatts — on a line most people have never heard of, and subject to approvals it doesn't have yet.

Power & UtilityGrid CapacityFinancing & Investment
September 30, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

Samsung Just Put $1 Billion Into a Data Center Company That Hasn't Named a Single Site.

Helix Digital Infrastructure launched in June with $10 billion and Vistra as its "preferred power provider." Samsung's September 29th investment pushed that past $11 billion. Helix still hasn't announced where any of it gets built.

Financing & InvestmentPower & UtilityCommercial Readiness
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 29, 2026 · Brendan Hogan

PJM's Capacity Auction Came Up 6.8 Gigawatts Short. Its Fix Could Cost Maryland Alone $562 Million.

On September 30th, PJM runs an emergency capacity auction it has never had to run before — up to $20 billion at a price cap 70% above normal. Five state ratepayer advocates already asked FERC to block it.

Power & UtilityGrid CapacityCommercial Readiness
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