For four days, this was county zoning fights. Today, FERC is naming data centers in a reliability directive. That escalation deserves a timeline. This is The Data Center Daily — the day somebody finally got named. FERC pointed at NERC, Virginia pointed at a bill, and Texas has $2.2 billion in abatements up for a look. Start with the federal move — because for once, it has a mechanism worth stress-testing. One tap on follow, and we'll be back in your ears before you know it. Bruce Grabow, Shane P. Early, writing in Energy Law Blog:
On July 16, 2026, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) issued an order that directs the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (“NERC”) to take action regarding “computational loads,” which are loads comprised of power demand from information technology equipment, such as servers, storage, and networking hardware, e.g., data centers. The FERC explained that, in light of the unprecedented load growth driven by data centers, it is imperative that NERC address the reliability concerns associated with computational loads.
On July 16, FERC issued an order directing NERC to file reliability standards for what it's calling 'computational loads' — servers, storage, networking. It's the first time the federal reliability framework has named data centers as their own class of grid demand. So the accountability gap I've been hammering all week — FERC just handed it to an actual institution: NERC. That's your answer to 'who's on the hook.' Careful. It tells NERC to file standards; it doesn't write them. And this grew straight out of NERC's own comments on the large-load ANOPR, Docket RM26-4 — where NERC itself said demand growth is the highest in two decades. Right, and here's my worry — NERC filings move like continental drift. Is there any timeline with teeth? Or does the ratepayer bill keep running while everybody drafts language for eighteen months? The order says 'urgent need for action.' Whether 'urgent' survives NERC's standard-setting process is what to watch. These are reliability rules, remember — not queue reform. Interconnection backlog is a separate fight. Which is exactly my question — is this pointed at the twelve gigs of large load stuck in PJM's queue, or is it just a paperwork registration exercise that never touches the LOA-to-megawatt gap? The action plan calls for registration analysis of large loads. That's a step. How big a step depends entirely on what NERC files and when FERC accepts it. Four days. Monday we're on county zoning fights and moratoriums, and by Thursday the feds are naming data centers in a reliability directive. Every hyperscaler sitting on a letter of intent is now staring at a compliance ceiling they didn't price at announcement. Here's what Adam Aton at E&E News is reporting. Virginia. The data center capital of Earth. And now the state is actually asking whether the guys pulling the megawatts should pay for the wires. Revolutionary concept. The mechanism matters more than the mood, Matt. It's the same accounting the PJM market monitor was gesturing at when he put $6.3 billion of the $16.4 billion capacity bill on data center load. Now a state wants to formalize it. Right, but 'mulls' matters here. Is there a docket number, or is this a working group that dies in committee while the ratepayer bill keeps running? Those are very different animals. Right — the E&E piece says 'mulling,' not a filed tariff. But pair it with the FERC-NERC order we just hit: federal reliability standards naming this load class, and a state looking at putting the grid cost on that same load. Four days ago this beat was county zoning fights. That's the part that gets me. Monday it's a Nebraska county drawing a line administratively. Thursday it's FERC and a state cost-allocation fight. The escalation curve is real. And it changes the math for anyone who priced their PPA at announcement. A direct cost shift is a line item they didn't model. Rod Walton at Energy Tech is tracking this. PJM's forward capacity auction gives you the supply-side read on everything we just covered. The FERC-NERC piece is about who writes the rules; this is the price tag when the megawatts don't show up on schedule. And here's the number that stuck with me — Monitoring Analytics pinning roughly $6.3 billion of the last auction on data center load, nearly thirty billion across four straight auctions. That bill's already been run up. Walton frames it at Energy Tech as electrification load colliding with a supply gap that's already priced in. The auction clears high because the capacity isn't there — not because someone's gouging. Right, but stack this against the 12 gigawatts of large load sitting in the PJM queue as of May. If the FERC directive doesn't specifically bite on that backlog, we're just clearing scarcity at a higher price every auction and calling it a market. Here's Amanda Cutshall at Community Impact:
Pacifico Cedar Creek LLC filed a June 24 application with the Texas Comptroller for a project at 382 Earl Callahan Road, Cedar Creek, that would pair an unnamed data center tenant with a multibillion-dollar natural gas-fired power facility.
Bastrop ISD sits down June 24 to consider a ten-year JETI abatement for Pacifico — capping the property value on school taxes from 2029 through 2038. Same nine-o'clock-session dynamic we saw out of Grimes County, except this one's $2.2 billion. And it's paired — data center plus a natural gas facility on 2,842 acres. That's nearly twice EdgeConneX's three planned Cedar Creek campuses combined, on one deed. The tenant's unnamed. So Bastrop schools are being asked to cap their tax base for a decade for a customer nobody's identified yet. Application filed, in-service targeted for 2028. Filing is one step; approval is another — this is a JETI application under review, not a signed agreement. The Comptroller hasn't blessed it. Here's the split-screen: Virginia's over here weighing a grid-cost shift onto data centers, and Bastrop's over here writing one a ten-year tax break. Somebody's doing subtraction while somebody else does addition. This one's from CRE Daily:
Several major US data-center operators are shopping majority stakes in their companies as AI-driven usage drives valuations to new highs, The Wall Street Journal reports. Firms including Netrality Data Centers, DataBank, Edged, and EdgeCore Digital Infrastructure have engaged bankers to solicit offers this summer.
So Netrality and DataBank are shopping majority stakes this summer — Edged and EdgeCore too — and the whole pitch is secured power and existing customers. Funny timing. We just spent this whole episode on Virginia pricing a cost shift onto data centers and FERC telling NERC to write standards that name this load class. And now private equity's being told: buy now, tens of billions, control the pipeline. The value driver is right there in the WSJ read — vacancy under one percent, and the assets that clear are the ones already holding a grid connection. The square footage is secondary; the energized interconnect is the prize. Right — and that's the tell. The scarcity making these platforms worth a fortune is the same scarcity Virginia and PJM are about to start billing for. So is the majority-stake sale the exit before the cost shift lands on the operator's books? It reprices scarcity the way Carlyle repriced Copia — the connection is the moat. But a moat you got by being early doesn't help much when the regulator changes the toll. Got a tip, a correction, or a story we should be watching in the data center world? Send it our way at datacenterdaily at lantern podcasts dot com. We'd love to hear from you.
What we're watching next: if the Texas Comptroller determines Pacifico Cedar Creek's JETI application is complete, the agency has 60 days to recommend or decline the proposed tax agreement.
We've put links to every story from today's briefing in the show notes, so you can dig into the ones you want to read more closely.
That's The Data Center Daily for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.