Proposed reliability standards that would require qualifying data centers, artificial intelligence facilities, and cryptocurrency operations to provide grid data, coordinate protection settings, and respond to grid operators’ instructions have passed their final stakeholder ballot, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) announced Oct. 15.
The standards and associated implementation plans will next go before NERC’s Board of Trustees for adoption, followed by submission to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for U.S. regulatory approval, the organization said in its announcement.
The Project 2026-02 package includes three new computational-load standards and revisions to two existing facility-interconnection standards. The new standards would apply to computational-load sites with at least 50 MW of total connected load supplied through electrical equipment connected at 100 kV or above, from one or more points of connection, under the final-ballot applicability provisions.
The vote advances the technical requirements behind FERC’s July 16 directive, which required NERC to file initial computational-load standards by Dec. 31, 2026. A separate registration effort also progressed on Oct. 8, when NERC’s board approved proposed Rules of Procedure revisions to establish Computational Load Owner and Computational Load Operator as two functional entity types, according to NERC’s third-quarter Large Loads Action Plan update.
Which Data Centers Would Be Subject to NERC’s Reliability Standards?
The proposed framework distinguishes the entity that owns and maintains a computational-load site from the entity that operates it, according to the final glossary definitions. Individual registration determinations would depend on each entity’s circumstances and would be conducted through NERC and the relevant Regional Entities, NERC’s October project FAQ says.
The 100-kV criterion concerns the electrical equipment supplying the site, typically its high-side voltage, rather than necessarily the point of connection identified in an interconnection agreement, the FAQ explains. The requirements would cover existing and future qualifying sites, and applicable utilities, planners, and grid operators would have duties alongside computational-load owners and operators, the document states.
The threshold is narrower than NERC’s initial registration proposal: the minimum load and voltage criteria increased from 20 MW and 60 kV to 50 MW and 100 kV following stakeholder comments, according to the third-quarter update. The board also authorized expedited development of a data request to support registration of computational-load owners and operators, pending FERC approval of the proposed registry criteria, the update says.
Proposed NERC Standards Cover Data Center Modeling, Operations, and Protection
The first new standard, CLO-001-1, would require coordinated interconnection studies, commissioning procedures, and planning-model data for computational-load sites. Transmission planners and planning coordinators would study new connections and existing sites seeking a “qualified change,” and planning coordinators would maintain a publicly available definition of that term under the proposed standard.
The required modeling information would include settings and capabilities related to tripping, ride-through, and recovery after disturbances, as well as the amount and expected use of information-technology infrastructure, under CLO-001-1. Owners would provide model-verification documentation to show that configurable, site-specific parameters represent installed equipment, including updates within 180 days after hardware, software, firmware, or setting changes that alter dynamic response, the standard specifies.
The second standard, CLO-002-1, would establish operational-data and communications obligations. Transmission operators, balancing authorities, and reliability coordinators would document their data needs, and computational-load owners and operators that receive those specifications would have to satisfy them under the proposal.
Among its most consequential provisions, computational-load operators would have to comply with operating instructions from their transmission operator, balancing authority, or reliability coordinator unless the action could not be physically implemented or would violate safety, equipment, regulatory, or statutory requirements, under Requirement R8. Operators unable to comply would have to notify the issuing entity, and personnel who receive oral operating instructions would need initial training in confirming or requesting repetition of those instructions, the standard states.
The third standard, CLO-003-1, addresses protection coordination and disturbance monitoring, including breaker-status records, fault recordings, and continuous dynamic disturbance data. Load owners would also establish and use a process for developing protection settings so protective systems operate in the intended sequence during faults, including resolving identified coordination issues before implementation, under its requirements.
Recording responsibilities would depend partly on equipment ownership: where a utility or generator owner owns the main transformer supplying the site, that entity would bear the applicable fault- and dynamic-disturbance-recording duties, according to the CLO-003-1 implementation plan. Changes to existing standards FAC-001 and FAC-002 are intended to avoid duplicative interconnection requirements, according to the associated implementation plan.
Data Center Industry Questions Multitenant Compliance Responsibilities
How those obligations would work at multitenant facilities was a substantive issue during development: a site operator may lack authority over tenants’ equipment, access to their information, or the technical ability to change their consumption, the Data Center Coalition argued in comments summarized in the drafting team’s response document. Data requests should not require owners and operators to provide information outside their control or access, the coalition said in those comments.
A dedicated on-site operating organization is not required, and a centralized or shared function could serve as the accountable operator, the drafting team said in responses to Meta and the coalition. Allocation of responsibility at multitenant sites would depend on registration and operational responsibilities, and NERC staff were developing additional registration clarity, the team said in the same document.
The existing exceptions for physically infeasible actions and safety, equipment, regulatory, or statutory restrictions provide limits on operating instructions, the drafting team said in its responses. The final text retains those exceptions rather than expressly adding the contractual and third-party-control exclusions sought by the coalition, as reflected in CLO-002-1.
Proposed NERC Compliance Timelines Extend Up to Three Years After Standards Take Effect
The year-end FERC filing deadline is not a deadline for facilities to comply: the proposed plans establish effective dates tied to regulatory approval and then allow additional implementation periods, as set out in the CLO-001-1 plan. In jurisdictions requiring approval, that standard would become effective on the first day of the first calendar quarter after the approving order’s effective date, unless the relevant authority provides otherwise, the plan specifies.
Planning coordinators would have three months after CLO-001-1’s effective date to establish qualified-change definitions, and planning coordinators and transmission planners would jointly develop modeling-data requirements within the same period, under its phased schedule. Interconnection-requirement duties would follow at six months, and the remaining study and owner-data obligations at nine months, under the same schedule. For operational data and communications, grid entities would have six months to establish and distribute data specifications, while owners and operators would generally have 12 months for data provision, operating-instruction, communications, and training obligations under the CLO-002-1 plan.
Disturbance monitoring has the longest proposed transition: sites in service on or before CLO-003-1’s effective date would have 36 months to meet its recording requirements, under the implementation plan. Sites entering service afterward would have until 15 months after the standard’s effective date or their in-service date, whichever is later; protection-coordination duties would begin after nine months, the plan specifies.
The monitoring schedule accounts for equipment procurement, installation, and necessary outages, according to the plan. For sites in service no later than 12 months after the standard’s effective date, entities could request extensions of the monitoring requirements if circumstances beyond their control prevent equipment installation, under the implementation plan. Those periods remain proposed, and the standards still require board adoption and applicable regulatory approval, NERC said in its Oct. 15 announcement.
Minimum Voltage and Frequency Ride-Through Standards Remain Under Development
The package responds to gaps identified through NERC’s incident reviews, Large Loads Working Group, and May Level 3 Essential Action Alert, which addressed modeling, studies, commissioning, protection, monitoring, and operational coordination for computational loads. The alert called for assessment of aggregate load reductions, including customer-initiated reductions, that could cause planning-criteria violations, as well as better information about facilities’ protection and control responses.
However, this initial package does not establish industry-wide minimum voltage and frequency ride-through performance requirements—the conditions under which facilities must continue operating through electrical disturbances—as NERC explicitly states in its October FAQ. Its interconnection provisions can accommodate ride-through criteria based on grid-performance needs, but broader minimum performance requirements are a separate development effort, the document explains.
Additional work is proceeding on disturbance performance, computational-load-loss studies, and event reporting and model validation, according to the third-quarter action-plan update. A work plan for subsequent computational-load standards is due to FERC by March 1, 2027, under the July order.
