data centers
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Commentary
Phantom Data Centers Didn’t Break the Power Grid—They Proved It Was Already Broken
The requests flooding interconnection queues come from data center developers, private equity funds, land brokers, and shell companies, many of whom lack site control, a construction timeline, or even a signed customer. They secure a queue position, bet that powered land will attract a buyer, and wait. The industry calls them “phantom data centers,” and the grid isn’t prepared to handle them.
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Gas
Record Power Burn Expected This Summer as Coal Retirements and Data Centers Drive Gas Demand
U.S. natural gas supply is expected to reach a record 117 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) this summer, including 111.7 Bcf/d of dry gas production, but growing demand from liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports, data center load, industrial activity, and power generation is absorbing much of that growth, leaving less gas available for storage […]
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Commentary
Managing AI’s Footprint in a Carbon-Constrained World
Behind even the smallest convenience powered by AI is a massive surge of computing power for training models and inference. All that computing power requires energy.
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Commentary
Aligning Data Center Growth with Community Acceptance in a Constrained Grid
Grid capacity and the interconnection queue aren’t the only constraints on U.S. data center growth. Community acceptance is becoming the toughest bottleneck to break through, and a hot political topic with the approach of the midterm elections.
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Commentary
A Roadmap for Breaking Through the Power Demand Bottleneck in Data Center Construction
With many hyperscale data centers requiring hundreds of megawatts of reliable, uninterrupted power, contractors often find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place.
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Commentary
The Grid Doesn’t Need More Power—It Needs More Control
The energy industry keeps talking about a shortage of power generation. In reality, this is a control problem.
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Commentary
The Blueprint for Meeting the Power Needs of AI
I have spent my entire career working at the intersection of infrastructure and power. Collaborating with colleagues in the utility industry has been an enormous part of my job for almost three decades. So much so, that I have been humbled by how many familiar faces have come up to me at recent power-focused conferences […]
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Energy Storage
Meta Secures Power from Noon Energy to Serve Data Centers
Ultra-long duration energy storage group Noon Energy announced an agreement with technology company Meta Platforms to reserve up to 1 GW/100 GWh of energy storage capacity. Noon on April 21 said the initial phase of the deal will be for a 25-MW/2.5-GWh project, set for completion by 2028.
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Legal & Regulatory
FERC Sets June Deadline to Rewrite Large-Load Grid Rules for AI-Era Power Demand
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has set a June 2026 deadline to act in a high-stakes rulemaking that could redefine how massive new power users—including AI-driven data centers—connect to the U.S. interstate transmission system. In an April 16 order in its “Interconnection of Large Loads to the Interstate Transmission System” docket (RM26-4-000), the commission […]
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Gas
Rehlko, INNIO Have Deal For 1.25 GW of Gas Engine Capacity
Energy resilience solutions provider Rehlko said that it has entered into a multi-year strategic engine framework agreement with INNIO Group, securing the supply of about 1.25 GW of gas engine capacity over the next three years.
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Geothermal
Fervo, Turboden Sign 1.7-GW Turbine Deal for Geothermal Power Plants
A subsidiary of Italy-headquartered Turboden has a turbine supply agreement with Texas-based Fervo Energy, a deal that will further support U.S. geothermal energy projects.
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Data Centers
Full Throttle: Five Trends Reshaping the Gas Power Boom
A once-predictable industry is moving at hyperscale speed. Here are five trends defining the biggest gas power buildout in a generation. Natural gas power is in the middle of its biggest buildout in a
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Data Centers
Google Signs Deal for Demand Response Capacity for Data Centers
Tech giant Google has announced what the company calls “A new milestone for smart, affordable electricity growth.” Here’s the text of a blog post from Michael Terrell, Head of Advanced Energy for the company.
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Trends
The Frog Is Dead: North America’s Power Grid Faces Its Biggest Reckoning in a Generation
For much of the 21st century, the North American power sector drifted along on near-zero demand growth. Utilities retired aging coal plants, developers filled interconnection queues with wind and solar, and investors looked elsewhere for excitement. Then came the data center boom—and seemingly overnight, the industry found itself in a full-blown supply crisis. In a […]
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Commentary
Why Nuclear Power Is Most Viable Option for Data Centers
The first data center to run entirely on self-generated nuclear power will shatter a long-held assumption that computing infrastructure must wait for the grid. A large-scale facility will operate around the clock while controlled fission reactions take place 1,000 feet from its server racks. When that happens, every data center operator still waiting for grid […]
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Data Centers
Hyperscalers Sign White House Pledge to Fund Data Center Power, Grid Upgrades
Seven of the nation’s largest artificial intelligence (AI) companies and hyperscalers signed a White House-brokered agreement March 4 committing to build, procure, or fund new generation capacity sufficient to cover the electricity demands of their data centers—and to pay for all grid infrastructure upgrades required to connect them, without passing those costs to residential or […]
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Data Centers
EQT, GIP Move to Take AES Private in $33B Bet on Data Center Power Demand
A private equity–led consortium has agreed to take AES Corp. private in a $33.4 billion deal that—if completed—will shift one of the largest U.S.-listed power companies and a major data‑center renewables supplier into private ownership. AES’s board says the move, which comes as load growth and capital needs are rising across the sector, is designed […]
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Data Centers
Caterpillar, OnePWR Solutions, Vero3 Collaborate to Support Data Centers
Caterpillar Inc, OnePWR Solutions and Vero3 announced a strategic collaboration focused on developing large-scale lower-carbon power generation and permanent carbon storage projects to support mission-critical facilities, including data center infrastructure. The parties on March 2 said they intend to collaborate on the design of a fully integrated solution combining natural gas–based prime power generation, carbon […]
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blackouts
THE BIG PICTURE (Infographic): Blackouts in 2025
Major power outage events in 2025 reveal a broad spectrum of reliability risks, spanning voltage instability and protection failures to extreme weather and heat-related transmission stress. Compared with recent years, which were largely characterized by weather-driven disruptions and resource-adequacy events, 2025 incidents more clearly highlight vulnerabilities in interconnected system operations, including voltage management, reactive power […]
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Coal
POWER DIGEST [March 2026]
U.S.-based Energea in mid-January announced its acquisition of the YO Residence Solar Project, marking a significant milestone as the company’s first microgrid investment and entry into South Africa’s renewable energy market.
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Commentary
America’s Once-in-a-Generation Energy Opportunity
America has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rebuild its energy backbone. For the first time in decades, capital investment, technological innovation, and bipartisan political will are aligning to
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Finance
Southern Co. Lands Largest Loan in DOE History—$26.5B for Gas, Nuclear, and Grid Projects
The Department of Energy (DOE) has closed a $26.54 billion loan package—the largest single loan commitment in the agency’s history—with Southern Co. subsidiaries Georgia Power and Alabama Power to finance more than 16 GW of “firm” generation and more than 1,300 miles of transmission infrastructure and grid enhancement across the Southeast. The transaction, announced Feb. […]
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Interview
The POWER Interview: Former SpaceX Exec Drives Arbor’s Turbine Innovation
Demand for electricity from artificial intelligence (AI), data centers, industrial electrification and more is driving innovation in the power generation sector. Speed to power has become even more important, as companies seek ways to more quickly satisfy their hunger for power, without sacrificing efficiency and in some cases their clean energy goals.
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Partner Content
Geothermal Groundbreakers: The Projects Redefining Renewable Power
Sponsored by:
A handful of geothermal projects are crossing from experimentation into execution, testing whether drilling gains, reservoir control, and new market demand can turn subsurface risk into firm, contractable power. Since 2021, geothermal power’s proposition has been quietly shifting, driven primarily by encouraging policy, but also a new class of decisive buyers. In response to reliability […]
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Business
SB Energy Tapped for Proposed 9.2‑GW Ohio Gas Power Plant in First Tranche of $550B U.S.–Japan Deal: What We Know
The Trump administration is touting a proposed 9.2‑GW natural gas power complex near Portsmouth, Ohio, as the centerpiece of a new U.S.–Japan trade deal that officials say could steer up to $550 billion of Japanese capital into American energy and industrial projects. According to a Feb. 17 Commerce Department fact sheet and a statement by […]
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Data Centers
Utah ‘Gigasite’ Data Center Contemplates Solar-Storage Baseload Addition
Zeo Energy Corp., a Florida-based residential solar installer that acquired struggling concentrated solar thermal developer Heliogen Inc. six months ago, has signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Creekstone Energy to study the development of 280 MW of generation for a multi-gigawatt data center campus under construction in Millard County, Utah. Under the Feb. […]
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Interview
The POWER Interview: Helping Power Infrastructure ‘Keep Pace with Modern Ambition’
The challenge of upgrading how power is generated, along with needed improvements in electricity transmission and distribution, is being met in a variety of ways by an array of companies.
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Gas
New Gas-Fired Plants Bring Needed Generation, Flexibility to the Power Sector
Several natural gas–fueled units are being developed as a way to support the industrial sector, including data centers, and to help integrate more renewable energy to the grid.
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data centers
Xcel Energy Inks Dual Alliances with GE Vernova, NextEra to Support 6-GW Data Center Outlook, Generation Expansion
Xcel Energy has moved to lock in supply and development capacity for what could become 6 GW of data center load through separate strategic agreements with GE Vernova and NextEra Energy, announced this week, that reserve five F-class gas turbines, multiple gigawatts of wind capacity, and joint development resources to support generation buildout into the […]
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Nuclear
Natura, NGL Move to Pair Nuclear Molten Salt Reactors with Large-Scale Produced-Water Treatment in Permian
Abilene-based Natura Resources, which won the first federal construction permit for a liquid-fueled molten-salt reactor in 2024, will work with NGL Water Solutions Permian to explore deploying its 100-MWe reactor design alongside thermal desalination systems to transform briny drilling waste into usable water—while powering data centers and other industrial loads hungry for around-the-clock electricity. The […]