The U.S. Chamber of Commerce just put its name on a FERC docket about the 36-gigawatt interconnection backlog — and that's a very different conversation from what a county planning board has been dealing with all week. It's The Data Center Daily, Friday, May 29th — I'm Cassidy, Matt's here — and we're closing the week with the Chamber at FERC, Synergy's global facility census, and a hard look at what Microsoft's 10.5 gigawatts of PPAs and Amazon's 20 actually obligate those companies to deliver. Five days of county ordinances and water fights, and we end up on a federal docket written by the business lobby. So, yeah — today we find out who actually gets a seat when the real rules get written. Synergy says there are 1,297 hyperscale facilities operating worldwide right now — operating, not announced — and SMR developers are treating 80 megawatts as the standard AI-facility ask. So the queue math is getting uglier fast. U.S. Chamber of Commerce writes:
We commend the Commission for initiating this important proceeding to address the challenges and opportunities associated with the interconnection of large loads to the electric grid. The Chamber brings the unique perspective of counting among its members not just many of the electricity providers and technology companies that are key stakeholders to the large load interconnection process, but also the numerous electricity customers who count on affordable and reliable energy to support their businesses and livelihoods.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce filed formal comments in FERC Docket RM26-4-000 — the large-load interconnection proceeding — and the framing is worth clocking: the Chamber says it represents electricity providers, tech companies, and the customers who pay the bill. That's a very wide tent to pitch in one comment letter. Wide tent, narrow interests. The Chamber lists all three constituencies, but the ask is about large-load interconnection rules — that's not a comment letter for the 49,000 Lake Tahoe households waiting on NV Energy's sequencing promise. That's a comment letter for the hyperscalers trying to jump the 36-gigawatt queue. And that 36-gigawatt backlog is exactly why the DOE's October 23rd letter triggered this ANOPR in the first place — the Secretary effectively asked FERC to move on large-load rules, and the Chamber showed up three weeks later. Monday we were talking about county ordinances; today we're in a federal docket. That's the escalation in venue this week earned. The people who packed the Goochland County hearing room and the Pulaski County planning board don't have a filing deadline at 888 First Street NE. The Chamber does. So when the rules get written, guess whose preferred framework lands in the record. Synergy Research Group writes:
Over the last three years, quarterly hyperscale operator capex has ballooned, growing by almost 180% and reaching $142 billion in Q3 of this year. This has enabled a comparable 170% increase in the amount of operational capacity added each quarter.
Synergy's Q3 census says there are 1,297 hyperscale facilities operational worldwide, nearly triple the 2018 count, but capacity is up more than fourfold — which tells you the real story is in the denominator. Average facility size keeps climbing, so each new site is a bigger interconnection ask than the last. And quarterly capex hit $142 billion in Q3 — up 180% since ChatGPT launched. That's not a trend line, that's a step change. The FERC queue wasn't built for a world where the average new site is materially larger than the average site from three years ago. The U.S. share ticking from 52% to 55% of worldwide hyperscale capacity sounds small until you stack it against the 36-gigawatt interconnection backlog — and now the Chamber of Commerce is in FERC Docket RM26-4-000 arguing the federal interconnection process should be the governing framework. That's the industry's answer to a queue problem Synergy just put hard numbers on. The Chamber filing is the business lobby's hand going up at a federal regulator — not the grid operators, not the ratepayers. If the rule they're lobbying for prioritizes large-load interconnection, that 1,297-and-climbing denominator tells you exactly who benefits and who gets shoved farther back in line. From Blake Crosley at Introl Blog:
Renewable energy commitments have surged alongside AI infrastructure investment. Tech giants committed $10B+ to nuclear partnerships (Amazon $500M to X-energy; Google 1.8GW to Elementl Power; Microsoft restarting Three Mile Island). Microsoft dedicated $80B in FY2025 to data center expansion, much requiring renewable PPAs. AI data centers projected to consume 945 TWh annually by 2030 make sustainable power essential.
Introl's PPA roundup puts three names in the same sentence — Microsoft at 10.5 gigawatts of renewable PPAs, Amazon claiming the world's largest corporate renewable position at 20 gigawatts, Google with a 24/7 carbon-free energy commitment by 2030. Those are three different legal instruments. A PPA is a power purchase contract. A ranked buyer position is a volume claim. A 24/7 CFE commitment is a matching obligation. None of them are the same thing, and all three get called 'clean energy' in the press release. And the question I want answered is how many of Amazon's 20 gigawatts are operating on the same grid where the load actually sits, not vintage-matched RECs from a wind farm in a different ISO. Because the SMR piece this week is telling us a standard AI facility now pulls 80 megawatts — more than double legacy data centers — and that math only works if the gigawatts on paper are gigawatts on the wire. And this is the week that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce dropped a filing in FERC Docket RM26-4-000 on large-load interconnection. The industry's preferred solution to all of this is at the transmission layer — not the water layer, not the county ordinance layer. That's a meaningful choice about where the fight gets resolved. The Chamber is not the grid people. The Chamber is the load people. And if they're the ones shaping the interconnection queue rules at FERC, I want to know whether that comment letter speeds up queue position for the 20-gigawatt buyers or whether it does anything for the smaller load that's been waiting behind them. Dallas Bond, writing in iRecruit.co:
Data centers are facing a growing energy crisis. AI-focused facilities now require 80 MW of power, more than double the 32 MW standard data centers consume. In the U.S., energy demand from data centers is expected to jump from 17 GW in 2022 to 35 GW by 2030, while grid interconnection delays stretch up to a decade.
The iRecruit SMR roundup is dated March 10th, so some of this is evergreen context — but the 80 MW per AI facility figure is the number worth anchoring to, because it's more than double the 32 MW legacy standard, and it's the denominator that makes every queue discussion this week sharper. Amazon's 960 MW Pennsylvania SMR commitment and Microsoft's 837 MW Three Mile Island revival are the headline deals — but I keep coming back to whether those are signed capacity agreements with delivery dates or options dressed up as strategy announcements. At 80 MW per facility, you need real electrons on the same grid, not vintage RECs matched on a spreadsheet. And the 95-plus percent capacity factor on SMRs versus 25 to 35 for solar and wind is the honest engineering case — that gap is why the hyperscalers are even at the table with nuclear developers, and it's also why a PPA for intermittent renewables is a structurally different instrument than an SMR power agreement, even if both get filed under 'clean energy commitments' in the same earnings deck. 17 gigawatts of U.S. data center demand in 2022, expected to hit 35 by 2030 — and grid interconnection delays stretching up to a decade. The Chamber of Commerce just filed in FERC Docket RM26-4-000 to fix the queue, but SMR developers are basically building their own bypass lane, and I'd like to know who's still standing in the original line while that bypass gets built. If you track the infrastructure behind AI, you may also like Musk v Altman Daily — a daily court-watch on Elon Musk's trial against Sam Altman, OpenAI, and Microsoft, covering testimony, exhibits, and the AGI governance fight. Find it wherever you listen to podcasts.
You’ll find links to everything we covered today in the show notes, so if a story deserves a closer look, that’s the place to start.
That’s The Data Center Daily for this Friday, May 29th. Thanks for listening, and have a great weekend. This is a Lantern Podcast.