DATA CENTER POWER Direct

This year’s Data Center POWER eXchange (DPX), whose programming POWER’s editors curated, was structured to look beyond the scale of opportunity presented by large-load forecasts and delve into the questions they raise. A key focus: What will it take to deliver power infrastructure and data centers on timelines, terms, and operating conditions that both industries […]

Who pays, who bears the risk, who decides, and when? Virginia Commissioner Jehmal Hudson makes a forceful case that serving large-load growth requires credible commitments, earlier coordination, and ratepayer protections built into investment decisions. Good afternoon. Thank you to POWER Magazine for inviting me to join you today. It is a pleasure to be with […]

Hyperscaler Google and Constellation Energy, the largest nuclear operator in the U.S., have signed a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) designed to support $4.3 billion of upgrades at 11 nuclear units across the PJM Interconnection, which is slated to add 890 MW of generating capacity from Constellation’s existing reactors by the end of 2032. The […]

Fit Energy, a developer of energy solutions for data center projects, has announced plans for a fuel cell power generation and data center project in Newport Township, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. The project received township zoning approval for both uses in August of this year. Fit Energy on October 6 said engineering and the remaining permitting […]

U.S. grid planners are preparing for annual electricity demand growth of about 0.9% to 1.6% through 2050, with data centers emerging as a major driver, and EPRI—the Electric Power Research Institute—suggesting they could account for as much as 17% of U.S. electricity demand by 2030. For the wind, solar, and energy storage industry, this represents […]

Electric utility Georgia Power and tech giant Google said the companies have an agreement under which Google will support power uprates at two of the utility’s nuclear power plants.

Data centers are connecting to the transmission system faster than the reliability rules were built to handle and behaving nothing like the passive load those rules assumed. Here’s what the North American Electric Reliability Corp.’s (NERC’s) Large Loads Action Plan, a new class of registered entity, and a hard 2026 deadline mean for anyone planning, […]

From two-year bushing lead times and hyperscaler demand to U.S. manufacturing expansion and the emerging 765-kV build-out, Trench Group CEO Bahadir Basdere explains where high-voltage equipment supply is under the most pressure. High-voltage grid components are becoming a critical constraint as utilities, transmission developers, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), and hyperscalers compete for equipment needed to […]

As data center developers confront tighter power supplies, longer interconnection timelines, and growing scrutiny over who should pay for the grid infrastructure required to serve large loads, those pressures are beginning to reshape another part of the development equation: talent. As states and utilities reconsider how the costs of serving large data center loads should […]

Texas data center developer TIDAL PWR, which says it has seven projects totaling 9.87 GW in its artificial intelligence (AI) campus development pipeline and designs its campuses to combine utility service and behind-the-meter generation, is collaborating with quantum technology company BTQ Technologies to determine how power and data center infrastructure could eventually accommodate quantum computing […]

A widening gas turbine supply crunch has prompted Ansaldo Energia to explore a new path back into the U.S. generation market after more than 30 years. The Italian manufacturer will supply California-based

A recent flurry of state and federal action points to a marked pivot from treating data center growth as a grid-planning challenge to requiring large-load customers to show who pays for grid upgrades, what capacity supports the load, and how projects will operate during system stress. Morgan Lewis partner Arjun P. Ramadevanahalli spoke with POWER […]

Technology giant NVIDIA is furthering its support of artificial intelligence (AI) and data center construction. Cloverleaf Infrastructure, a group that supports the AI buildout by providing power sources and infrastructure for site development, on August 21 said it has entered into a strategic partnership with NVIDIA to advance the development of digital infrastructure across the […]

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro signed an executive order on Aug. 18 that raises the bar for large data center development in the state, directing agencies to condition favorable permitting treatment and tax benefits on compliance with new energy, infrastructure, environmental, workforce, and community requirements. Executive Order 2026-05 applies its central permitting provisions to data centers with […]

For decades, most large electricity users in the U.S. relied on the grid for the vast majority of their power needs. As long as the grid could deliver reliable, affordable power, there was little reason to think differently. Now, electricity demand is rising faster than new generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure can often be planned, […]

PJM Interconnection has proposed a new framework that would allow large data centers and other major electricity users to enter service without first securing enough new capacity to cover their demand—but would make the uncovered portion of that load available for reduction before PJM calls on existing pre-emergency demand-response resources if electricity supplies become dangerously […]

The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection’s (WVDEP) Division of Air Quality (DAQ) has determined that Purcellville, Virginia-based Fundamental Data satisfied the site-control requirements associated with its August 2025 air quality permit for the Ridgeline Facility—a gas turbine power plant that Fundamental Data is planning as the first phase of a project intended to include […]

Blue Energy and GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GVH) have signed an agreement to launch the next phase of their collaboration on a planned 2.5-GW gas-plus-nuclear power project in Victoria, Texas, moving the closely watched data-center power concept from an announced collaboration to engineering, licensing, and safety analysis. The Aug. 13-announced agreement will advance project definition for […]

A growing group of data center operators—including Dallas-based Skybox Datacenters, Austin-headquartered bitcoin miner and hyperscale developer Mara, and global colocation giant Digital Realty—have publicly committed to comply with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s data center standards and the state’s active audit of projects in the Texas grid operator’s interconnection queue. They join QTS Data Centers, Blackstone’s […]

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s Aug. 3 order pausing all new data center connections to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) grid until a comprehensive audit is complete could delay 49.8 GW of new data center electricity demand from advancing on the ERCOT system—nearly 20% of the U.S. development pipeline—BloombergNEF (BNEF) said in an Aug. 5 […]

Ruggedly engineered and manufactured switchgear provides safe, redundant power while also delivering the resilience and continuous operation expected in large-scale data center environments. As demand for cloud services, large-scale data processing, and artificial intelligence continues to grow, hyperscale data centers have expanded dramatically in size. It is now typical for a single campus to encompass […]

California-based Deep Fission said the DOE signed off on the Nuclear Safety Design Agreement (NSDA) for its Gravity Nuclear Reactor. The group called it a major regulatory milestone that confirms Deep Fission’s reactor design warrants advancement under the DOE Reactor Pilot Program.

NRG Energy on Aug. 4 unveiled its first Bring Your Own Power (BYOP) project, a 1.2-GW combined-cycle plant in Texas supported by a 15-year contract with an investment-grade “leading global cloud and artificial-intelligence hyperscaler.” The $3.2 billion facility, backed by a customer parent guarantee, is targeted for commercial operation in late 2029 and could be […]

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has directed the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) to conduct a comprehensive audit of every data center advancing through the state’s interconnection queue, warning that projects that fail to disclose ownership, financial, water, and community-impact information could be denied grid access. The […]

Developers and contractors at a recent event described how the generation buildout is forcing earlier engineering, procurement, and construction contractor involvement; deeper supply-chain tracking; repeatable

Advanced nuclear firm Aalo Atomics has formed a strategic partnership with energy-first AI infrastructure company Crusoe to develop a nuclear-powered “AI Factory” data center in a project that will combine Aalo’s advanced reactor development program at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) with Crusoe’s modular AI data center platform. The companies said on July 30 that under […]

A coalition led by Brookfield and NextEra Energy has unveiled plans to build a $100 billion, privately funded artificial intelligence (AI) data center campus at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Paducah Site in Western Kentucky, paired with up to 4.6 GW of dedicated new power generation that will be built and paid for solely to serve […]

Energy Vault, a global energy infrastructure company that supports power grid reliability and next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing infrastructure, on July 27 announced that construction has commenced at its powered AI infrastructure campus in Snyder, Texas, for Crusoe Cloud.

Congress and the White House advanced parallel tracks this week to keep large data centers from shifting their grid costs onto electricity customers, reflecting a concern that has gathered momentum among state regulators, consumer advocates, and members of both parties. On July 21, the House Energy and Commerce Committee voted 52-0 to advance the Ratepayer Protection […]

A micro-modular nuclear reactor developer with global headquarters in Italy and a U.S. corporate office in Pennsylvania said it has been selected to deploy its equipment for data center infrastructure in Latin America and Brazil.