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